One Mother’s Story

This story is inspired by the 52 Ancestors prompt “Mother’s Day” in honour of Mother’s Day on 9 May in some parts of the world, including Australia.  I picked Mary Brownbridge because she had eleven children and she has an unusual surname.

Mary Brownbridge was born about 1783, in Pollington, a rural village in the parish of Snaith in Yorkshire.  She was baptised on 28 November 1783 in Snaith parish church.  Her parents were John Brownbridge and Mary Eastgate.  Mary was the sixth of their ten children.  Her siblings were John, Charlotte, Elizabeth, Bathia, Ephraim, Manassah, Anne, Isaac and Frances.  The unusual biblical names came from the Eastgate side of the family.

Father John Brownbridge was a wheel wright, so a tradesman.  I think life was not always easy for the Brownbridge family as three of the children died in early childhood: Ephrain, Manassah and Isaac.

I don’t know if Mary Brownbridge was educated.  She did not sign the marriage register on her wedding day.

Mary Brownbridge married John Tomlinson, a farmer or farm labourer from nearby Ackworth on 2 January 1803 in Snaith.  Mary was likely only 20, so a minor and her father appears to have signed the register to give his consent.

For Mary, becoming a mother may not have been straight forward.  The first child I have found for Mary and John was William, who was born on 24 February 1805, more than two years after the wedding.  I wonder if Mary miscarried or just failed to get pregnant in her first year of marriage.  Anyway, once she started having children, she had no problems with one successful pregnancy every two or three years for the next 21 years. John and Mary’s children were: Willam, Elizabeth, John, George, Ann, Joseph, Jane, Thomas (my ancestor), Charles, Sarah and Maria.  Through all her years of childbirth, she likely had support from her own mother, Mary Brownbridge nee Eastgate, who died in 1827.

Mary lost one child, Jane, in infancy.  I am not sure about two of her other daughters, Elizabeth and Ann.  Her other children lived to good ages, with Sarah dying 1912, so almost within living memory.  I share DNA with one of her son Joseph’s descendants.

In 1841, Mary and John were still living in Ackworth.  In the census, their household included Mary aged about 35, Ann age about 25, Martha aged 3, George aged 5 months and William aged 35.  The relationships are not listed but my guess is that William is their oldest son and I think Mary was his wife and possibly the mother of Martha and George.  Ann may have been John and Mary’s daughter.  John and William were listed as agricultural workers, so likely doing unskilled seasonal work on a farm, which was long hours and poorly paid.  At about 65, John must have been struggling.

Many of Mary’s children moved from Ackworth to Batley during the 1830s and 1840s.  I wonder if they were drawn by the better opportunities in an industrial town compared to the more rural are where they grew up.

Mary Brownbridge died in 1845 and was buried on 2 Jul somewhere in the churchyard of St Cuthbert’s, Ackworth, aged 62.  By this time, several of her children had married and she was a grandmother to at least seven children, as well as a mother.

While I don’t know much about Mary’s life, I do know that she brought up her children to be respectable and successful people.  Her son Thomas, my ancestor died with a fortune of nearly £18000, earned as a house painter and gilder, a long way from being an agricultural labourer. 

I carry a little of Mary’s children’s DNA so her legacy lives on.

 

Notes on lineage: Me > Dad > Helen Francis Ruth Akeroyd > Percy Tomlinson Akeroyd > Frances Tomlinson > Thomas Tomlinson > Mary Brownbridge