Page 44 - Just another English family (Sep 2019)

three shown in the census in Wakefield, Dewsbury and Halifax and presumably another address (which is not shown in the census) for Hannah and James. Is it a thriving grouping or one that will fall into reproductive decay? One remarkable feature is that among the 18 members of this grouping none is over 40 years of age. What it means is that both parents, Thomas and Elizabeth, seem to have died before reaching the age of 60 years; it is a daunting thought. With the absence of this older generation, the average age of this grouping is around 15 years – a remarkably young age. Two-thirds of them are youngsters under 21, so there certainly seems scope for this grouping to expand the numbers in future years. However, seven of the youngsters are girls and girls are not normally the mechanism for the transmission of a surname as it is usually changed for females on marriage. Interestingly, in this grouping we next mention some illegitimate births where the Soothill name is retained, but such practice is not widespread. In thinking about the reproductive health of a grouping, I tend to look to the number of males in the reproductive window of 18 to 50 years rather than the number of male children. After all, with the high death rate among children, particularly in the Victorian age, there is no knowing whether they will even reach adulthood, never mind becoming parents. Anyway, there are just two males who are currently in this reproductive window of 18 to 50 years, so perhaps the maintenance of the name of Soothill is much more fragile among this grouping than it at first appears. However, this overlooks the efforts of at least two of the girls in helping to retain the family name of Soothill! So what, indeed, happens to this Soothill grouping over the next fifty years?
Certainly both the girls, Hannah and Elizabeth, have a fascinating history. Hannah, Thomas and Elizabeth’s first child and christened in 1825, seems to have had an illegitimate child, named James, on 7 November 1844. James later married Eliza Nettleton (1845-1934) in 1867. Interestingly, William Soothill is noted on James’s marriage certificate and I have assumed that this is simply to avoid the stigma of an empty box on the form and is Hannah’s younger brother. Anyway, James and Eliza had seven children between 1869 and 1885 and, thus, provide scope for further expansion of this grouping. Of these, Hannah (1869-1883), the eldest, died when she was 14 years of age; Martha (1874-1892), the third eldest, died when she was 17 years of age, while Herbert (1885-1906), the youngest, died at the age of 21 years. These deaths are a reminder of the hazards of child-rearing and how death is
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