Page 79 - Just another English family (Sep 2019)

Edward (1809-1870) is the son of David and Judith (née Hartley) and married Elizabeth Bays (1813-?). By the time of the 1861 census, Edward and Elizabeth had had a very large family consisting of ten children – four boys (Daniel David (1832-?), Joseph Bays (1837-1838), Edward (1839-1841), and Richard Bays (1850-1852)) and six girls (Judith Hartley (1836-?), Elizabeth (1841-?), Mary (1843-?), Sarah Jane Hamerton Walker (1852-?), Maria (1856-?) and Sabina Thomson (1856)). Elizabeth’s child-bearing years seemed to span 24 years from 1832 to 1856. In the 1861 census Edward and Elizabeth are living at Bolton Brow, Skircoat, Sowerby Bridge, Halifax, with just Sarah J.H.W. and Maria. The other surviving children must be elsewhere although early deaths among the male children must have been heart- breaking for Edward and Elizabeth. I do not know how long Daniel David lived but, at present, he is the only one among the boys who have a chance of reaching adulthood. Nothing is known of the outcome for Elizabeth, Mary or Maria, while Sarah Jane married in Manchester in 1875, but nothing more is known. Sabina – perhaps the twin of Maria and who, curiously, does not appear in the 1861 census – married in Chorlton in 1878. Sabina appears married as Sovina, but it is almost certainly the same person. Again nothing is known about the outcome of this union.
So from this large family of ten children, there is no clear evidence of there being any survivors or successors which secure an entry as a Soothill in the 1911 census. Again it is impossible to measure any change without further information, but certainly at the 1861 baseline the focus is clear. Edward as head of the household based in Halifax has an occupation as a dyer in the woollen industry and the family’s chances are very much entwined with the fortunes of the woollen industry.
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William (1815-?) and Eliza (1816-?) Soothill
Entries in the 1861 census
75