Elizabeth Lane was convicted and sentenced to death in July 1885, while Grace and Isabella were in Preston awaiting their trial, and Margaret Higgins was convicted in November. The parallels among the three cases, including all three infants being found at water’s edge, suggest that Grace and Isabella were fortunate to be defended by E. Tindal Atkinson.
Thinking back to the article that David had found on Victorian values, I realized that it might actually be unsafe to generalize too widely about attitudes toward infanticide in the late 1800s. When and where you were tried, and who defended you, seemed to matter very much.
Sentiment in the locality undoubtedly played a big role in the pursuit of suspected cases of infanticide, and the Highams had found some important documentary evidence of the state of confusion that officialdom in Slaidburn had found itself faced with when the body of Thomas Gardner was discovered:
Subject: More from Slaidburn
On Sunday we discovered that the Parish Registers for both Baptisms and Burials (though not marriages) are still held in Slaidburn Church (rather than in the Public Record Office in Preston 20 miles away as we had assumed they would be)….
Our rector was kind enough to let us have a look at them this evening. We were given the keys to the Church AND the Vestry!! … As someone said in the “Hark to Bounty” … “You haven’t lived here long enough. Even I ‘avent seen in’t Vestry.”
The burial register starts at 8 January 1853 and ends on 20 February 1993.
In the burial register is Jane Isherwood’s burial on 21 July, 1883.
There is also an entry for Thomas Gardner. He was buried on the 21 May 1885:
Thomas Gardner (Found drowned) Meanly, 21st May, Geo Halliday, Officiating Minister. No 841a
There is an entry underneath the taped entry for Thomas….
Thursday 21 May was the day of the inquest at the Black Bull in Slaidburn.
According to the Registrar at Clitheroe: “You can’t issue a death certificate without an inquest verdict and you can’t be buried without a death certificate.” Slaidburn must have been a place in turmoil … First the inquest then the burial, all on the same day.
Since the final words of the inquest report were that “the prisoners were then removed” I wonder if Grace and Isabella attended the funeral, or were they already out of the village on the way back to Bolton-by-Bowland where they appeared the next day at the Police Court in front of Lord Ribblesdale….
The entry makes it clear that the vicar responsible for the burial was not the Parish’s usual Rector … yet another avenue to explore.
The Rector here was very surprised as Thomas Gardner’s entry is the only one in 150 years or more which has been taped into the Parish records as a separate entry between other burial records. He wondered whether the Rector of the time had trouble bringing himself to carry out the funeral for some reason or that perhaps they waited for the result of the Assize trial before making the entry. Who knows?
We may be able to ascertain where Thomas might be buried by investigating the concurrent burials and using them to navigate to a spot in the churchyard. Thomas should be around 108 in the graveyard navigations numbering system….
Tragic little Thomas. Even his death record had no certain, natural place in the continuity of things.
No gravestone. Almost no life.
The Slaidburn 1885 Chat Room
It was all so thrilling! The more evidence we uncovered, the more determined David, Cathryn, Penny and I became not just to re-solve the case, but to find out everything we could about the people involved and their lives, both before and after the death of little Thomas.
Emails full of facts ferreted out from various sources began arriving with their electrons still hot from transport. It was from UK Census documents that we began to piece together more detail about the lives of John and Grace and their families.
The next message from the Highams contained freshly released 1901 UK Census information. They had found Grace Isherwood, age forty-one, living at 26 Lincoln Street, Haslingden. With her was her husband John, age fifty-five, whose occupation was listed as a stonemason; Richard, age twenty-one, reed maker; Thomas, age nineteen, cotton mill warehouseman; and James Edward, age sixteen, apprentice barber. Matthew, Margaret, and young John were no longer living at home.
Grace and John had several new children listed on the census: William, age fourteen, apprentice barber; Elizabeth, age nine; and a little Isabella, age seven. William and Isabella were both listed as born in Haslingden, while Elizabeth had been born in Dalton-in-Furness.
According to David Higham, Haslingden is about twenty-five miles from Slaidburn (forty minutes by car). I had known that Margaret Isherwood was working in a mill as a weaver and living in Haslingden when she married in 1899, but when or how she had gotten there was unknown to me.
Slowly, the facts of the family’s relocation were beginning to emerge, but we still faced a gap as to where they were between 1885 and 1901. Still, if William Isherwood was fourteen and born in Haslingden, then the family most likely had been in Haslingden since at least 1887.
Even before I could form my questions, David and Cathryn were back to me with information from the 1881 census that we could use to piece together more of the lives of those long dead people we all found so fascinating:
We have had a look at the 1881 Census tonight …
John and Jane Isherwood are at Meanley with their children Matthew, Margaret, John and Richard.
Grace Gardner is 22 years old and living at Stafford Street, Dalton-in- Furness (the street is still there) with her parents Edward age 52 (iron miner) and Isabella age 52. Also in the house are Jane age 18 (dressmaker), Thomas age 16, Edward age 12, John age 8 and Edward John Sykes Gardner age 3 month, grandson.
Next door at 11 Stafford Street are Robert Dockery age 44 (iron miner) and Hannah age 40. Also in the house are William age 19 (iron miner), Richard age 16 (iron miner), Anthony age 13, George Andrew age 11, Elizabeth Jane age 10, John Edward age 9, James Henry age 5, Thomas Alfred age 3, Joseph age 1.
From the newspaper Grace had two children before her marriage. Thomas was born 15 December 1882, and that child’s father was called “William Dockray.”
I wonder if the grandchild Edward age 3 months in the summer of 1881 is Grace’s first illegitimate child? Or the illegitimate child of her sister Jane?
… The newspaper says that John and Grace married around the previous Christmas, i.e. December 1884.
As for the child that she was carrying at the time of the trial in summer 1885, it should have been born in late 1885 or early 1886, but the first child born in Haslingden (William) was born in 1887. I can only conclude that either:
1. She lost the baby.
2. The child is not on the 1901 census in Haslingden because it was about 15/16 and away from home. Grace wouldn’t be the first “housekeeper” to have taken an as it is still called “all found job” and ended up pregnant and marrying her employer.
I wonder if Jane Isherwood (nee Bleazard) died in childbirth giving birth to James or did Grace give birth to James before she married John? It would be good to find his birth certificate or do you already know the answer?
I was gripped. It was wonderful to be able to share the investigation with people who were as obsessed with the murder as I was. And there was more:
This is fascinating. Where is Isabella in 1881 if she isn’t at the house in Dalton-in-Furness? She would have only been 14 at the time. Was she already in service?
According to the trial, Dr Alexander Gray said that he attended Grace on December 15, 1882, when she had the child who seems to have been called James Thomas Gardner. It is interesting that she named her next child James as well, although she seems to have called the first one Thomas.
It would be interesting to see if the birth certificate identifies a father. Was it permitted to have no father listed? It would also be interesting to see who was Edward John Sykes Gardner’s mother. Maybe Grace had a
ctually had three illegitimate children !!! I wonder who Sykes was?
I also wonder if Jane died in childbirth, but I think that the child would have been Tom. We need to find Jane’s death date. Could the local parish records tell us anything?
David quickly found the young Isabella, working as a farm servant whose employers had a possible connection with Slaidburn:
Yes. Isabella Gardner is listed as 14 years old, unmarried, general servant, born Dalton, Lancs, dwelling: Medlar, census place: Medlar with Wesham, Lancashire. (Wesham is between Kirk-ham, Blackpool and Fleetwood on the Fylde coast 40 miles from Slaidburn).
The head of household is Leonard Mason born Wyresdale, Lancashire who is married to a Dorothy Mason of Quernmore. Two of their children were also born at Quernmore, Wyresdale borders on Quernmore; Quernmore borders on Tatham — Could there be a link with the Tatham Bleazards either by family or friendship? Getting a job is often who you know not what you know … Wyresdale is 12 miles from Slaidburn just across the fells of the “Trough of Bowland.”
And other pieces of the puzzle steadily came electron-ing in from Slaidburn.
We have found that in 1891 the Isherwood family were living at 9 Helmshore Road, Haslingden. This information came courtesy of Thomas Isherwood’s granddaughter — we found her on the web via the Haslingden family history website!
In 1901 Grace’s brother Edward is at 24 Devonshire Street, Dalton-in-Furness with his wife Helen, age 24, and their children Isabella, age 5, Samuel, age 3, and Helen, age 1. Living with them is Isabella Gardner (Edward’s widowed mother) by now aged 73.
I cannot find any of Grace’s other brothers and sisters, the grandchild Edward John Sykes Gardner, nor the rest of the Dockery family. Maybe I just haven’t looked well enough. As for Grace’s sister Isabella, there are 4 Isabellas in 1901 who were born in Dalton-in-Furness at the right date. None are called Gardner so either Isabella is one of them and by 1901 was married or had died between 1885 and 1901. I can’t tell without a more detailed search.
Cathryn
The members of our Slaidburn 1885 Chat Room were working overtime. David’s last email was sent at 4:00 a.m., and with my location in Australia nine hours ahead of the UK, I was able to read and respond while he had a decent hours sleep, although David often seemed to get by on only a few hours. In his next note he began by apologizing for being inaccurate, a totally unnecessary apology. He then went on to provide some important information about hiring fairs:
Subject: Hiring fairs
… Isabella Gardiner probably went to a hiring fair to find HER OWN job at Wesham with the Mason family of Quernmore near Tatham. Whilst working for that family she might have heard in discussion “over the kitchen table” that a friend or relation of her employers had just died and her husband was looking for a live-in housekeeper. At this point she might have suggested/recommended her sister Grace who was seeking a position. If Jane Isherwood nee Bleazard died at a period far removed from a hiring fair (usually Michaelmas and Whitsuntide) her husband might have needed somebody “a bit quick” to look after the children and could have written to Grace and hired her “un-seen” on the basis that Isabella’s employers had found Isabella’s work acceptable and that presumably Grace would have been brought up with the same work ethic. Pure speculation. He might just as easily put an advert in the newspaper. Who knows?
Here are some odds and ends from the internet which might be of interest:
In Victorian times (and for many years afterward) the “Hiring Fair” was a routine way of finding a job. These fairs were held in most towns twice a year, in May and November. Usually held in the market square, they were a bit like a livestock market, except that it was work, not animals that were being traded!
People looking for jobs, including young school leavers, would meet with local employers including farmers and the agents for large estates belonging to the gentry of the district. Anyone hired as a “living in” servant for up to a year at an agreed sum of money would be legally obliged to stay in the job for that period. Many were stuck with bad employers and terrible working conditions until the end of their “contract.” They were also times for people in work to change their employers in the hope of better conditions.
Hiring or Statue Fairs were normally held annually, in major market towns (minimum six and two thirds miles apart). The dates varied, but round about Michaelmas was favoured.
The spare labourers wanting a job stood in line, indicating any special skill: shepherds had a crook or sheep wool; carters had a bit of whip cord; maid servants held a little mop (hence the other name of Mop Fairs); ordinary agricultural labourers smeared themselves with manure and hoped for the best.
The employers walked down the line, prodding to test for sturdiness and even temperament. If they recognized a man as son of one of their good workers, they might hire or recommend him to others as good stock. If they spotted a member of the notorious XYZ family, they warned the others. (Could Grace’s illegitimate child have given the family a reputation locally leading to Isabella having to find work some distance from Dalton-in-Furness?) If they fancied the look of a workman, they offered a small amount for the year, bargained up by the man. When they agreed on a wage, they shook hands and the “hiring penny” changed hands (6d in the 1700s).
The labourer then went off to enjoy the fair and went home with the master. He lived in at the farmhouse (as a “farm servant” for the next full or half year — no nonsense about days off.) Completed service and the full payment of the agreed 4 or 5 guineas at the end of it gave the man a right of settlement in the parish. If he broke the hirings, even by one day, he had to start again and build up a second full year (and would not get paid for work already done).
Draw a six mile circle round a market town — this is where the men would normally be drawn from. Good workers got hired easily, at the nearest fair, so probably stayed close to the home parish (in the closest group of villages between home and fair, and probably in the quarter sector of the circle nearby. Sickly men, or those with a background of stroppiness or drunkenness, might be hired further away, say 12 miles, by farmers no one else wanted to work for. The worst case was that no one would take you and you had to go to the next further away fair. And the next. The fairs were slightly staggered in date — but hiring at a secondary fair till the next Michaelmas might give a less than a year contract — no settlement….
Best wishes, David
What an informative but merciless glimpse into rural sociology David had provided. He had also discovered, from an ad in the Penrith Herald of 1877, that “best men” earned £20 for a year plus board and lodging, scaling down through “good men” to lads and second-class lads, through first and second-class women, ending in girls who might be paid between £5–£7 for the year.
Imagine standing at a fair holding a little mop, or worse yet, smeared with manure, trying to attract an employer! Although I must admit that I have had interviews for jobs where I would have been quite glad to have some manure on hand.
Just Do the Math
David’s salary information provided me with my first glimpse into how large a piece childcare would have taken from Grace’s wages.
Grace had agreed to pay Agnes Creary 4s, 6d a week, and while my ability to add up old money is poor, I think that there were 20 shillings in a pound, which would mean that Grace owed around £11 per year for childcare for Thomas when her own wages were likely to be £10–£12 at best. In other words, Grace was in a hopeless position. No wonder she never was able to send enough funds to pay for Thomas’s various caregivers. And there was no point in her telling the truth of her financial situation. All that could flow from that would be the speedy return of Thomas to her parents or the workhouse.
When Grace left her baby and went into service, she had never worked away from home before, and she had little experience of how a servant earned money and how they might spend it. Her complaints in her letters probably reflected her dawning realization that she could
not earn enough even to pay for the care of Thomas.
Grace’s second pregnancy was a complete disaster. She would lose wages while she delivered and suckled the baby, and suddenly she was faced with another child to maintain. It was a measure of Grace’s fortitude that she did not give up completely at that point, and kill herself, directly, or indirectly by entering the workhouse. Instead, she found another job, one that would let her bring her new baby with her. John Isherwood had been the answer to a desperate woman’s prayers.
A Letter to Mrs. Creary
July 27, 1883
Dear Agnes
I am sorry that it has been some time since I last wrote.
I am still trying to accustom myself to life on a farm. We begin our work days in the early light of dawn. The animals start their crying and crowing while it is still dark and the chores never let up until it is dark again.
I imagine Thomas sometimes wakes early as well.
How is little Tom? Does he have any teeth as yet? Is he eating gruel or does he still cry for milk?
I hope you are able to put him out for air when the weather is fine.
Enclosed you will find 7/6 which is all I have at present. Money is very short. We are paid only fort-nightly and I have had some unforeseen expenses.
I will send more as soon as I am able.
Sincerely, Grace Gardner
Some Questions, Some Answers
We were all having a fascinating time positing theories and chasing down facts.
I wondered about the child referred to by Maggie in her testimony as “my little brother James.” He seemed too young to be one of John and Jane’s children, since he was just nine months old at the time of the alleged crime. Was he Grace’s second illegitimate child (or her third)? Or was he, in fact, Grace and John’s first child?
The Slaidburn Angel Page 16