Helen Darbishire was born in Oxford, the daughter of Samuel Dukinfield Darbishire, a physician at the Radcliffe Infirmary.
Originally a separate district in Cheshire, it was incorporated into Hyde in the 1930s, and occupies a narrow strip of land from the River Tame near Newton Hall to Matley, and lies between Hyde and Dukinfield.
The foundation stone was laid on 3 September 1838, the same day as the foundation stone for Sharpe's St John's Church at Dukinfield, by Lord Viscount Combermere, a former Grand Master of the local Masonic Lodge.