Life as a widow in the second half of the 19th century

 

                                                                 A Romanized image of a washerwoman in Paris 

Although still in her early 40s at the time of her husband's death, Sarah Minister Cavanagh didn't remarry. The 1861 census found her at yet another address from the ill-fated one at 31 Devonshire Street which had seen the death of two of her children as well as her husband, Benjamin. According to the census, sharing the accommodation with Sarah were her son, Henry, and daughters, Maria and Emma. Henry was 16 and employed as a shoe black. As a widow Sarah's occupation was also listed. She was a washerwoman. In 1871 this changed to charwoman only to change back again to washerwoman in the 1881 census.

A Dictionary of Old Trades, Titles and Occupations, defines a washerwoman as: "A person who 'took in' other people's washing into her own home for a fixed fee. As opposed to a laundry woman who did the same job in a commercial establishment." Whatever her employment, it was manual labour which makes me question if she had book learning. If she was self-employed she must have been able to keep a tally. Beyond the sheer physicality of the work gave me respect for her stamina. It wasn't as though there was running water readily available or washing machines when it comes to that. She was still performing this work after the age of 65. But in those days the choices were supporting yourself or resorting to the workhouse. Not a decision to be taken lightly. 

Sources:

Ancestry.com census returns

Waters, Colin A Dictionary of Old Trades, Titles and Occupations, Countryside Books, Berkshire, 2002  

Image:

Washerwoman pic

By Giovanni Boldini - https://www.sothebys.com/en/auctions/ecatalogue/2018/tableaux-omp-19me-sculpture-pf1809/lot.188.html, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=85308359

A closer look at Sarah Minister/Cavanagh's moves through London

 

                                                Sarah would have been close to this river in her moves through London

Sarah Minister/Cavanagh and her family rarely stayed in one place for long while living in London and, while I have lots of addresses for them, it was had to pinpoint the actual places they were living in on Charles Booth's Poverty Map (1886-1903). Most of the addresses were for places, courts or yards. Those designations sound like smaller geographical areas than streets so were probably less likely to be written on the map. The actually poverty legend that Booth's maps were noted for was very patchy throughout the areas I was looking at; Whitechapel, Finsbury, Stepney and St George's in the East. The map didn't add much to my knowledge of the family's circumstances.

While Benjamin was alive he worked at various jobs in the building trade. It is hard to say if Sarah also worked for a wage. Did her husband support her and the nine children they had together? Not that the children stayed home for long. The only census which showed most of the family together was the 1851 census, the last one in which father Benjamin was still the head of the household. Even that showed only 7 of the 9 children as Emma was not yet born and Matilda was absent. Perhaps Matilda was in the infirmary as she died in 1853.

The deaths in the family give credence to the idea that they were not living in the healthiest of situations so perhaps they were among the less well off in whichever area of the city they were in. Even after the death of her husband, Sarah continued to move from place to place in London. Maybe that was how it was done in the East End. 

 

Sources:

Charles Booth’s Poverty Map (1886-1903) https://booth.lse.ac.uk/map

Following Sarah Minister/Cavanagh's moves through London

 

                                    A copy of one of Charles Booth's London Poverty maps in my collection

Many of my ancestors ended up in London. The city was a draw for people from all over the country. Just off the top of my head I can think of at least three places that I've been able to document that my ancestors hailed from: Dorset, Suffolk, Essex and Norfolk - oops that looks like four that automatically came to mind. Because of this, I've amassed books on London, its history and social issues. Among the collection are also London atlases from various time periods as well as the Poverty Maps that Charles Booth drew up in 1889. While Sarah died a few years before that date, I think that those maps will be a good indicator for the state of the areas she lived in even if that happened to be decades earlier. I don't think there was much reform prior to Booth bringing the state of London's areas to public notice.

I have amassed a list of addresses for Sarah from official government documents such as marriages and deaths as well as census information. Also helpful for tracking down the family's moves were baptismal records. I wasn't able to find those for all 9 of the children and, in the case of 3 of the offspring, they were all baptized in the same month and year, so that source wasn't as helpful as hoped but there are still a lot of moves and changes of abode to cover. Now to track the places on a map if I can find them all.

Sources:

GRO certificates for marriage and deaths obtained from the General Register Office in the UK

Parish records accessed through Ancestry and FindMyPast

 

First steps to uncover a family story

 

                                                 The GRO death certificates for Benjamin and Sarah Cavanagh

Even though I feel I neglected Sarah Minister, the notes and documentation on hand have a lot of information about her. It isn't complete though and, if DNA matching might potentially help, I will need to find out about both her children and any siblings she might have had. There are similarities between her experiences and those of my other 2 x great grandmother, Mary Rideout nee Maidment. They both became widows at a young age. I wonder if Sarah, like Mary, had a child after her husband was no longer around.

Unlike Mary, Sarah moved a lot as was common for the city dwellers of London at the time. She would have lived in the Big Smoke from the time of her marriage to Benjamin Cavanaugh on September 11, 1838 until her death in 1885. As you can see from the photo of their death certificates above, Benjamin died in 1855 so that meant she was a widow for 30 years. Even so, her occupation on her death certificate was listed as being the widow of Benjamin Cavanagh, as though that was what had supported her for three decades.

At this point, I need to go through the information I have and come up with a plan of action to fill in the gaps of Sarah's story and determine what happened to her children. I also hope to take the search back to Sarah's origins in Great Yarmouth and see if there are any other related Ministers I can follow up on.

Sources:

General Register Office Death Certificate:

·         Benjamin Cavanagh 25 March 1855 31 Devonshire Street age 39 Painter Journeyman Phthisis 3 years Pericarditis informant Mary [Ind] present at the death registered 27 March 1855

 

·         Sarah Cavanagh 10 August 1885 Infirmary Bakers Row age 70 Widow of Benjamin Cavanagh a plumber 6 Charlotte Place Apoplexy informant JJ Ilott medical superintendent Infirmary Bakers Row registered 12 August 1885

A forgotten family branch

 

                                                                        A street in The Rows, Great Yarmouth

Some of my latest posts have been about the Maidment family as finding the parents of my 2 x great grandmother, Mary Maidment, had been a long time quest. But you know, another 2 x great grandmother was also missing parental information and she rarely came to mind. Her name was Sarah Minister and she came from Great Yarmouth. I know very little about her story.

A recent episode of Walking Wartime Britain made me think of her and her ancestors as the show host was in East Anglia. Before the program I didn't know exactly where East Anglia was but apparently it takes in Great Yarmouth, which is a port city and would have been the area where the Nazis landed if they had invaded Britain. Precautions were taken at the time, of course, especially along the coastline but Great Yarmouth would have been hard to defend. The viewers were taken on a brief tour of an area of the town called The Rows, where the roads are narrow paths between the buildings. It made me wonder if that was where Sarah had grown up.

Unfortunately, it doesn't look like I will be able to determine that as both of Sarah's parents appear to have died prior to 1841 and the earliest Great Yarmouth directory seems to be from 1839. Sarah herself was no longer in Norfolk by that time as she was married in Hoxton, Middlesex in 1838. When had she moved from Great Yarmouth and had she done it on her own? It looks like there is more to find out about her story.

Sources:

GRO certificate of marriage between Benjamin Cavanagh and Sarah Minister 11 September, 1838, District of St John the Baptist, Hoxton, County of Middlesex, (Registration District of Shoreditch)

University of Leicester, Special Collections Online – Historical Directories of England and Wales  https://specialcollections.le.ac.uk/digital/collection/p16445coll4/search/searchterm/1820-1829!1830-1839/field/period!period/mode/exact!exact/conn/and!and 

Images:

By Great Yarmouth's Rows - Row 95 (Kittywitches Row) by Evelyn Simak, CC BY-SA 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=142379971 

September resolutions?

 

                                                    Just some of the genealogy magazines I haven't yet gone through

This week I watched as the kids went back to school and it felt like things were getting back into the normal grove after being relaxed for so long. In my case, I don't have to go back to work or school but I am affected by school traffic as I live adjacent to a school so have to time my activities to avoid high traffic hours when school lets out. It also left me with a feeling that I should be getting back to something too. And, you know, I probably should figure out where to focus my time. So I thought, why not resolutions in September.

January resolutions are traditional, I know. But September feels like the start of the year in a lot of ways. Besides, January could get in on the deal as well. It would be a great time to look over my list of resolutions and see which ones are doing fine and which might need more work or maybe some tweaking.

I foresee the compilation of a comprehensive list to get myself back on track only part of which would be about family history. I'll start with my genealogy resolutions though and they are:

That should keep me going for awhile!

Genealogy and the dog days of summer

 

                                                                Some of the pictures now on my dining room wall

I was able to attend a meeting of the PoCo Genealogy Group this past week, something I am rarely able to do as it is usually held on the first Wednesday of the month which conflicts with another meeting I attend. Before the presentation about the latest Ancestry updates started, one of the other attendees asked me, "Are you getting much genealogy done?" I nodded yes. Her answer to that was "I'm not." When I looked around the table there were fewer attendees that usual. I don't know if that was because of the change from the meeting's usual date or if the missing people had also been sidelined by the dog days of summer.

It has been hard to get into research lately as life speeds up as we head towards the start of September which is often a cue to start the usual work and school days up again. I'm hoping that some of my latest activity will bring me some inspiration on the family history front. The walls of my living space were mostly bare but recently a friend helped me to hang some of the many paintings and framed photos in my possession. Since I am related to not only the people in the photos but also to the artists whose paintings I have hung, I'm hoping that being surrounded by their works brings me insights into the past.