Page 81 - Just another English family (Sep 2019)

This is a family based in Rochdale in the 1861 census. William (1815-?) and Eliza (1816-?) with three sons (Frederick (1839-1862), Squire (1842-1908), and Charles (1853-?)) and four daughters (Sarah Anne (1844-?), Ellen (1846-?), Jane (1847-1912) and Harriet (1851-1905)) have one of the most sizeable families of Soothills displayed in the 1861 census. All except the mother, Eliza, are shown in the census with an occupation, that is, including 9-year-old Charles who is employed as a ‘Billy Piecer Woollen’, which is exactly the same occupation shown for 11-year-old Harriet. The other children are shown with a variety of occupations in the cotton industry – Frederick is a ‘Grender Cardroom’ and Squire is ‘Engineer Cotton Mill’, while the girls are employed variously – Sarah Ann as ‘Drawer in Frame Tenter Cotton’, Ellen as ‘Roving Frame Tenter Cotton’ and Jane as ‘Back Tenter Cotton’, while their father, William, is simply shown as ‘Engineer’ but presumably in the cotton industry. So what happens to them subsequently? In fact, little is known about any of them and this large family does not appear to have any current Soothill descendants via Frederick, Squire or Charles.
Frederick died in Rochdale the next year (1862) after the census. Squire lived much longer dying, again in Rochdale, aged 66 in 1908. Nothing else is known about him, for curiously he does not seem to appear in later censuses. Finally, even less is known about Charles, aged 9 in the 1861 census, for his birth is currently the sum total of the information. In contrast, and unusually, a bit more is known about the four girls. The eldest, Sarah Anne, married in Rochdale in 1867; nothing else is known about the next eldest, Ellen; Jane never married and is shown as living at 6 Willow Place, Rochdale, in the 1911 census, dying the next year (1912) aged about 65; the youngest daughter, Harriet, was also unmarried and died in Rochdale aged 53 years, seven years earlier in 1905.
This large household based in Rochdale in 1861 has eight of its household with paid work with some variations. Some of the occupations sound of a higher level than most of those previously discussed from the 1861 census. The head of the household, 45-year-old William, was identified as an engineer as was his 19-year-old son, Squire. The other children, ranging in age from nine to 21 years, had some
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