John Done was born on 7th June 1911 at Hatton, the son of Thomas Done and Margaret (nee Maddock), who were both born in Hatton. John’s father was a bricklayer’s labourer. Thomas and Margaret Done had had four children before John: Bessie, Eva, Clara and Thomas (junior), all born in Hatton.
The 1911 census recorded the family living at Factory Yard in Hatton and apart from the parents and four children, they had an adopted child called Annie Maddock. John was born shortly after the census was taken on Sunday 2nd April.
Ten years later, the 1921 census recorded the family as still living in Factory Yard but the father was working as a woodman for Sir Gilbert Greenall on the Walton Hall estate. Bessie and Eva had left home and there were three additions to the family: Elsie, Doris and Alfred. All the children were at school except for one year old Alfred. Sadly, a daughter named Margaret had died in 1915 at the age of about two years.
In the early 1920s two more children were born: Walter and May, and the Done family eventually moved to Goose Lane in Hatton. Clara, Thomas and John left home, but John did not move far: he was recorded on the 1939 Register for England and Wales as living at School House on Goose Lane with Mary Rutter, a widow, and her widowed daughter Mary Alice Whitney, whose husband had died in early 1939. John was employed as a general labourer on a private estate. In late 1939 John married Mary Alice Whitney (nee Rutter), and they had one son.
John’s father and mother died in 1941 and 1958 respectively.
John Done passed away in 1980 at the age of 69 years. His wife Mary Alice passed away in 2004 at the age of 99 years.
It is known that John Done served in the Second World War, as his name is mentioned in an article in the Parish Magazine for Daresbury in August 1946, when presentations were made to the men and women of Hatton who had served in H. M. Forces.
However, it is not known in which branch of H. M. Forces he served.