Esther Lambert

Esther Lambert was my grandfather's grandmother. She was the youngest daughter (or at least the youngest known daughter) of William and Betty Lambert, and was born in Catterall, near Garstang, Lancashire, on 31 August 1807. She was christened at Garstang in September 1807. Esther didn't have an easy life, but nevertheless she lived to the relatively great age of 79, dying in 1887 in Walton le Dale.

Her life story is full of unanswered questions and intriguing hints. I haven't been able to find out much about William and Betty, nor about Esther's oldest sister Betty (born July1802). Her other sister, Hannah (born 23 March 1805) seems to have had two children while she was still unmarried and living in Garstang - Daniel in April 1829 and Esther in 1831.

In May 1831 an Esther Lambert and a Matthew Cragg were witnesses at the wedding of Grace Lambert and John Singleton at St John's church in Preston, Lancashire. It seems likely, but it would be fascinating to know for sure if this is the same Esther and Matthew who were later to marry in the same church. I haven't been able to find any connection between Grace Lambert (born about 1801) and William and Betty, or with the other members of the family. Unfortunately although Grace and John appear in the 1841 census with their two children, Grace had died before the 1851 census when her place of birth would have been recorded. She remains an enigma.

William and Betty both died within a few weeks of each other in June 1833, aged in their sixties. A few months later, in October, Esther married Matthew Cragg at St John's, Preston. The witnesses were Samuel Smails and Margaret Beesley, neither of whom seem to have any family connection.

In 1834 another son, James, was born to Hannah Lambert, who was now living in Accrington. She married a widower, James Cronkshaw, in 1834 and the whole family was living in Accrington at the time of the 1841 census. Whether she had any further contact with Esther is unknown.

Esther and Matthew's first son, William, was born in 1835 and Richard followed in 1839. At the time of the 1841 census the family were living in Cabbage Row, Radcliffe, Lancashire. A nephew, William Newsham, aged 9, was also living with them. Mary Ann came along in December 1843. As mentioned previously, tragedy struck in February 1847 when the two boys, William and Richard, died. 

It looks as though Esther and Matthew continued to provide accommodation for William Newsham, along with his older sister Mary Newsham. They were living with Esther, Matthew and Mary Ann, still in Radcliffe, at the time of  the 1851 census. 

Who were William and Mary's parents? One possibility is that they were the children of William Newsham and Anne Lambert, who married at St John's Preston in 1829. Anne died in 1832 (aged 37) and William senior in 1835. I haven't been able to discover what the connection was between Esther and Anne, although Mary and William Newsham are described as niece and nephew in the census, suggesting that Anne may have been a sister. There is a baptism record for an Anne Lambert, daughter of William and Elizabeth Lambert, in Warton, near Lancaster, in May 1795, which could fit. 

By 1861 Esther and Matthew had moved to Walton le Dale. William and Mary Newsham were gone, but another child, Nancy Heap, was living with them. Here is another puzzle - who was Nancy? Matthew had a sister Mary who married a William Heap, but they don't seem to have had any children name Nancy or Anne (Nancy being the diminutive form of Ann.)

It's possible that Nancy was the daughter of Mary Newsham. A Nancy Heap was born in Radcliffe in 1852 whose mother's name was Newsham. A Mary Newsham (father's name William) married Joseph Heap in 1851. This is all rather tentative evidence, but seems to be confirmed later, as we'll see.

The 1871 census records that Nancy was still living with Esther and Matthew Cragg in Ribblesdale Place, Walton le Dale. By this time Mary Ann had married John Ward and they had 3 children (John Willie, Matthew and Esther). John and Mary Ann moved to Littleborough sometime between 1874 and 1877, leaving Esther and Matthew and John's father Richard behind. Why did they move? It's one of those questions I'd love to know the answer to, but probably never will.

Matthew died in August 1878. Now Esther had no immediate family in Walton le Dale. However, it seems that Nancy had become very much part of the family. In 1881 Esther was living with Annie and John Parkinson and their three children in Walton le Dale, and she's described as "mother in law". My guess is that Annie is Nancy. An Annie Heaps, daughter of Joseph Heaps, married John Parkinson, clogger,  in Walton le Dale on Christmas Day 1875. Annie Heaps' address on the marriage record is Ribblesdale Place, the same as Matthew and Esther's address in the previous census. Perhaps Nancy and her children filled the place left in Esther's life when her grandchildren moved away.

Some interesting statistics

St Matthew's church Rastrick
where Matthew Ward and Elizabeth Brown
were married in 1890
cc licensed ( BY ) flickr photo by Tim Green:
http://flickr.com/photos/atoach/8158579073/

Recently I've been looking at the marriage records for the family of my grandfather, Thomas Henry Ward. While I was writing up the results, it occurred to me that he and his siblings almost all married quite late in life. Apart from Matthew, who married Elizabeth Brown at the age of 22, they were all over 26 years old when they married.

John Willie was 28 when he married Mary Hannah Butterworth, Esther was 28 when she married Travis Kershaw, and Edward married Susan Lord Sagar at 30. Henrietta married John Henry Christopher Massey at 26, and by the time Fanny married the widowed John Henry Christopher she was 59 years old. Grandfather Thomas Henry himself was 38 when he married.

I haven't been able to find figures for the average age at marriage in England around this time (the end of the 19th and beginning of the early 20th century). What I have been able to do is analyse the age at first marriage for various cohorts within my own database, using the software I use for recording family history (Roots Magic).  

Admittedly the numbers are very small. But for what it's worth, here are the results, using only those individuals for whom I have both a date of birth and date of marriage:

For those born before 1865 (John Willie's date of birth), the average age at marriage was 25.94 years for men and 23.28 for women. The average number of children per family was 3.63.

For those born after 1865 the average age at marriage for men was 26.35 and for women 26.47. Clearly, Fanny's very late marriage affected this figure. If I take her out of the list, the average age of marriage for women becomes 24.31 - still a good year older than women born before 1865. The average number of children per family was 1.55.

This drop in the number of children per family is also something quite noticeable. Compared to, say, Richard and Mary Ward (married in 1831) with their 9 children, or James and Rosanna Beales (married 1867) with their 15 children, or even Thomas Henry's own parents, John and Mary Ward (married 1864) with 9 children, Thomas Henry's generation had very few offspring. Matthew and Elizabeth had 6, and the rest of the family had 4 or less. In fact, 6 children is the largest family for anyone in my database born after 1865.

It's interesting to speculate on why Thomas Henry and his siblings married so late in life, but I don't have any answers. Grandfather Thomas Henry may have married earlier if it hadn't been for World War 1, but he was already 32 and still unmarried when the war began. As is often the case in family history research, finding the facts is much easier than explaining them.

John Ward’s siblings

Recently I've been trying to trace what happened to the siblings of John Ward. While I don't have any great interest in extending the family tree sideways, I often find that information about siblings can be helpful in understanding the life of the person I'm focusing on.

Of Richard and Mary Ward’s nine children, four (William, Frances, Mary and Margaret) died in infancy, and were buried in Walton le Dale. The only remaining daughter, Ann (born about 1833) remained in and around Walton le Dale all of her life and in 1860 she married Thomas Gardner. As I've mentioned before, it seems likely that Thomas Gardner was the younger brother of Elizabeth (Betsy) Gardner who became Richard Ward’s second wife after the death of Mary. When the 1911 census was taken, Ann was still living in Walton le Dale, aged 78, in the home of her son Richard and daughter Margaret.

John Ward’s oldest brother, Thomas (born about 1832) was a joiner’s apprentice when he was 18, but later he worked as a railway guard in Salford. In 1857 at about the age of  25, he married Sarah Ann Surr, a 17 year old girl from Manchester. They were married at the cathedral in Manchester. They had three children, Fanny, Mary Ann (both born in Manchester) and Andrew, born in Walton le Dale. In 1861 they were living in Preston, but their stay in Preston may have been brief, as Sarah is recorded as having died in Salford at the age of 25 in April 1863.

In January 1865 Thomas remarried, to Lucy Mansley, nee Sharples, a widow. Perhaps they had known each other growing up, as Lucy was also born in Walton le Dale. Her father, Johnson Sharples, was a clogger there. Thomas and Lucy had a daughter, Margaret Ann, and in 1871 the couple were living with the four children in Hope Street, Salford. Lucy, Andrew and Margaret Ann were still living at the same address in Salford at the time of the 1881 census, but I haven’t been able to trace what became of Thomas. Presumably he died between the 1871 and 1881 census.

John’s second oldest brother, James, is much more elusive. The only definite references I can find to him are his baptism in Walton le Dale in 1837, and his residence with Richard and Mary in the 1841 and 1851 census. In 1851 he is described as a tailor’s apprentice, aged 14. A James Ward born in Walton le Dale appears in the 1881 census, married to Alice and with a son named Enoch and a daughter named Mary Alice. He is a painter and plumber. Despite the unusual name of his son, I haven’t been able to trace him back to the 1871 or 1861 census or forwards to 1891.

Fortunately the third of John’s surviving brothers, Richard, is much easier to follow. Like Thomas, he worked on the railways in Salford. He married Hannah Moss, from Eccles, in 1861 (the same year his father Richard married Betsy.) In 1871 they were living in Preston, where Richard was a railway guard. They had four children at this stage – John, Alfred, George and Sarah. Little Sarah died in Preston in 1873. By the time of the 1881 census the family had moved back to Salford, and had added Clara (born in Preston) and Bertha (born in Pendleton).

Hannah died sometime after 1881. In February 1886 the widowed Richard married  Elizabeth Clarkson, who was a 40 year old 'spinster' and one of John and Mary Ann’s neighbours from Crabtree Street. They married at Holy Trinity in Littleborough and John Ward was one of the witnesses at the wedding. Richard and Elizabeth had a daughter, Amy, born in Pendleton in December 1887. By the time of the 1891 census only 13 year old Bertha and 3 year old Amy were at home with the couple in Pendleton. By now Richard had become a railway inspector. He had retired by 1891 and he, Elizabeth and Amy had moved to Littleborough. Richard appears to have died and been buried at Calderbrook, above Littleborough, in 1911.