The Slaidburn Angel

by M. Sheelagh Whittaker

  Cathryn ordered up the birth certificates for the children we thought to be Thomas and James from the registrar in Cumbria.

  To everyone’s surprise, the registrar’s office phoned to check with Cathryn because the Gardner birth certificates she had requested showed two different mothers. Cathryn, bright as always, asked, “Does it seem the mothers were sisters?” An affirmative answer led her to request both certificates, guessing that Grace’s younger sister Jane had given birth to the other child.

  The next email from Slaidburn gave me some answers and raised new questions:

  Subject: From Slaidburn

  I have received the birth certificates from the Registrar at Barrow-in-Furness and they are as follows (as you can see there is no mention of a father for either child):

  Certificate 1

  Date Born 11 December 1880

  Name Edward John Sykes

  Mother Jane Gardner a Dressmaker Informant

  Jane Gardner mother, Stafford Street, Dalton

  When Registered 26 January, 1881

  Registrar James Dickinson

  Jane would have been 17 or 18 when he was born. I cannot find a “Sykes” living locally who might have been the child’s father, but at least we know who his mother is.

  Certificate 2

  Date Born 15 December 1882

  Name Thomas

  Mother Grace Gardner a Domestic Servant Informant

  Grace Gardner mother, 9 Stafford St. Dalton

  When Registered 23 January, 1883

  Registrar James Dickinson

  Grace would have been 23 or 24 when he was born.

  I am sure that we can assume that it is likely that Thomas’s father was William Dockery. After all, he lived next door to Grace, was an “iron miner” and would have been 20 or 21 when Thomas was born and seems to coincide with the entry in the paper that he was the father of the child.

  I have also had a look today for George Halliday the Minister that officiated at Thomas’s funeral … I haven’t had any luck in finding him on the 1881 census around either Slaidburn or Dalton-in-Furness….

  Bye for now Cathryn & David

  It was all becoming quite addictive.

  Subject: Relief

  Dear Highams

  I was crestfallen when I logged on this morning and there was no note from you. I’ve grown accustomed to our correspondence.

  My husband William still thinks it was the Dockery senior, who was in his forties with a worn out wife, who was the dad of Grace’s child. Why else would the parents not have married, since they were both young and employed?

  Cathryn, I was thinking yesterday that I don’t remember Grace ever being quoted as saying anything. She let Isabella do all the talking. Interesting to speculate as to why. Maybe they thought Isabella was a better liar.

  The response from David came quickly:

  Dear Sheelagh

  Nice theory. Perhaps father Gardner didn’t have a shotgun….

  The information that we had found out about Grace and her sister Jane made me think again about Isabella. Sometime around the birth of Edward John Sykes Gardner, Isabella went off to work as a domestic servant on a farm. There might have been some family connection, but one wonders why she was sent away to work. Maybe with the arrival of sister Jane’s baby the house on Stafford Street just seemed too small for all of them, or maybe Isabella was already showing a desire for something different from the way her sisters’ lives seemed to be heading.

  Practicalities

  David, Cathryn, and I were also engrossed by the practicalities of the “crime.” I started to wonder what a horse-drawn conveyance called a trap looked like, and how the four travellers, Grace, Isabella, little James, and Thomas, would have been arranged in the vehicle.

  I also wondered about the rug in which Thomas had been wrapped. Was it rough and thick and heavy, like a horse blanket, or something more comfortable?

  While there was regional variation in the design of pony traps, they all had certain characteristics in common: they had two large wheels, a bench to sit on, or possibly two short benches facing each other, and some sort of footwell. Space would have been quite tight for two women, a babe in arms, a toddler, and their purchases.

  The Highams took the opportunity to go to a Lancashire textile museum and look at a fulling mill in action: a process that converts woven wool cloth into heavy worsted rugs. The products of such a process were very heavy rugs that were often used as horse blankets.

  Having looked at the heavy, dense rug material, David mused in a spirit of fairness: “Who knows, it may have been possible for Thomas Gardner to have smothered accidentally if he was wrapped in such a heavy blanket.”

  The type of rug the sisters had used to wrap up little Thomas played on my mind. Was it possible to wrap a two-year-old up in such heavy blankets that he would suffocate without one noticing? As I wrote to the Highams:

  Is May very cold in Slaidburn? I wonder if you would wrap a two year old in a very heavy blanket (32 oz) on a May day? Especially since we know he had a hat and coat on (and a sweater I think) since they took them off….

  Yours in curiosity S

  Not to be outdone, David wrote back “in curious fascination.”

  I have seen snow in Slaidburn in June … but I agree, wrapping a child in a heavy felted horse blanket does seem unlikely and somewhat excessive….

  But a few hours later he was back to me with further reflection on the topic of blankets in May.

  I was thinking more about hot weather in May. I remember driving old Fordson Major tractors without cabs during hay-making at little more than walking pace on blazing hot days in June and July and being absolutely frozen. The inactivity and lack of movement soon makes you cold. You would always put a pullover and often a coat on….

  In retrospect, maybe wrapping a child in heavy blankets wouldn’t seem such a strange notion, and the trip to and from Clitheroe involves a climb over a relatively high fell (400 m?) I think temperature drops by one degree Celsius for every 100 m increase in altitude … or something like that.

  Further research with a pony/trap/carriage, driving/rug, agricultural history specialist led to these further helpful nuggets of historical information:

  In 1885 a trap was probably a gig, Ralli car (sp. not Rally cart) or Whitechapel cart. Some of these can be seen in Marylian Watney’s Looking at Carriages or Sallie Walrond’s Encyclopaedia of Carriage Driving.

  And as to the type of rug found in a trap and likely to be used to cover a child:

  Depends on the context. A horse rug was a thick woollen cloth; the better quality ones were “Melton” cloth which was nearly waterproof. It was shaped for the horse to wear while standing waiting during travel, or at night in the stable, and had straps at the neck and round the girth to hold it in place. A driving rug or apron was intended to keep the driver warm while driving in bad/cold weather and again may have been of Melton cloth if it was a good quality one. Usually (in England) the cloth was a “drab,” beige-y colour. It had one set of straps to hold it in place round the wearer’s waist. It was nowhere near as big as a horse rug, unless it was a double rug to cover both driver and passenger; in that case it had an extra bit let in at the centre so it could be tucked under the rumps of both humans and horses and keep out the elements! In summer it was lighter and intended to keep dust off the clothes — may have been linen or cotton.

  Grace and Isabella borrowed the neighbour’s trap and likely the blanket. But I would have thought they would have brought their own wrappings for the children, although the rug may have simply been stored under the seat. It seems unlikely that one would wrap a two-year-old in a really heavy blanket, immobilizing him. The two-year-olds I know would protest vigorously. But then, the two-year-olds I know haven’t spent any time in a Victorian workhouse.

  Penny pointed out a key statement about the rugs that I had previously overlooked. At the Magistrates Proceeding, Edward Hanson, the earthenware dealer in Clitheroe, descri
bed Grace as getting into the trap and arranging the seats and the rugs, then getting out. “Isabella Gardiner then got in and sat down and I lifted the little boy in. She placed him in the bottom of the trap.”

  In Penny’s opinion, Grace arranged the rugs to make a little nest for the two-year-old. Hanson then lifted him up and Isabella placed him in the nest. Thomas was wearing a coat and a hat and he would be sitting up but warm and protected from bouncing.

  The sisters then drove over to the co-operative store, where Walter Embley brought out the basket of groceries that they had bought and put them in the trap as well, presumably on the floor beside Thomas. It sounds as if the floor of the trap was quite full at this point, and that little Thomas was tucked up in his little nest.

  When we next hear of Thomas, his seemingly lifeless body is wrapped in a shawl in Isabella’s arms.

  A Timeless Topic

  Subject: Yet another one from Slaidburn

  Dear Sheelagh

  Your husband’s theory on the parentage of Thomas, i.e. the next door neighbour with the worn out wife … A totally unconnected conversation last night in the pub:

  “Bloody disgusting! … 67 year old and he’s gone and got the next door’s 17 year old daughter ‘up t’ stick’ (pregnant)”

  As they say around here ‘nowt’s fresh!’ (there is nothing new)

  David

  I must admit, I did appreciate David’s accompanying translations.

  A Lesson in Effective Research

  Back in Slaidburn, the Highams were following up on the details of poor little Thomas’s burial. We had worked out that the burial and the second day of the coroner’s inquest were on the same sad day, but it was confusing to note that the usual rector did not conduct the service for Thomas.

  Dear Sheelagh

  I have found the rector who buried Thomas Gardner.

  The current Rector, Mark Russell-Smith, told us that there is something called “Crockfords Clerical Directory.” It is an annual publication which lists all ministers ordained within the Anglican Church and the Parish that they are the minister of for a given year.

  “Crockfords” was in existence when Thomas Gardner died. In 1885 there were 3 Halliday’s (one in Australia and one in County Durham) the third was Ezra Halliday (rather than George as we took the entry to be). He was the minister at Dalehead Church which is the next parish to Slaidburn. (Now disappeared under Stocks Reservoir built in the 1920s/1930s.)

  Looking at the Burial Register for May and June 1885 the Slaidburn Rector buried someone on the 7th of May and the next entry is for the 16th of June. Maybe he was simply away from the parish when Thomas Gardner needed to be buried, hence it fell to the Rector of Dalehead to do the job.

  Mid-May is a bit of an unusual time to be on holiday, but of course there are many things that might have kept the rector from performing the service. Could the Slaidburn rector have been on the coroner’s jury, I now wonder?

  An Official Expression of Outrage

  The Church of Saint Andrew, an ancient building with ancient traditions, had recorded the burial of Thomas Gardner in its ledger with a hiccup. The entry had been carefully written on a page from elsewhere in the ledger and then hinged into the record over the space where it ought to have been. But that strangely appended record only suggests confusion on the part of the church. The detail of the official registration of Thomas Gardner’s death reveals scarcely controlled wrath.

  Thomas Gardner’s death certificate was sent to us on the green registration paper also used to record death by natural causes. But this record was dramatically different to those of other leave-takings. Since he was only two, Thomas’s occupation was described on his death certificate as “Illegitimate child of Grace Gardner, wife of John Isherwood.” Under cause of death, the official had written, “Wilfully drowned in Easington Brook by Grace Isherwood and Isabella Gardner.”

  The source of the information was noted as Arthur Robinson, the coroner.

  We were all shocked by the seeming harshness of the death certificate, but Penny found the best way to put it all into words. First, she called the document an “utterly amazing death certificate,” then she went on to say:

  I appreciate the bald statements of the 1800s as shown in the “occupation,” but the “cause of death” entry reminds me of the time in my family years ago when the neighbour’s dachshund killed my children’s kitten. My three daughters and a bunch of neighbourhood children had an elaborate burial, and created a headstone that said, “Here lies Snowball, murdered by Fritzi.” There was real anger there, and I read that in the coroner’s language too.

  Worlds Apart

  Once they understood what had to be done, Grace and John moved quickly. Trying his best not to look backward, John gave up the tenancy to Meanley and gathered up their beds, linens, pots, and tables and chairs. Then, with the help of Tom and Mary Rushton and the older children, they were off.

  The squire had listened to him thoughtfully when he had gone for advice, and the advice that he had received was that he needed to find a way to start afresh, somewhere where the family’s history and troubles were not known and where he and Matthew and Margaret could find work. The King-Wilkinson family had contacts over toward Rochdale, and the squire felt that there was plenty of work to be had in the surrounding towns, now full of mills.

  He was not happy to see an Isherwood move from Slaidburn, but the squire was realistic and he knew that the taint of the death of a child could last for generations. The mill towns, while not that far away, were worlds away from the closed society of his village, and he felt certain that the struggle and comparative anonymity in a mill town would help protect John’s family from the stigma of Grace’s trial. Mill workers had too many immediate problems of their own to worry about such things.

  John went over to the area to assess his prospects, found the family some rooms in a house at 3 Deansgrave, and suddenly they were on the road to Haslingden.

  A week earlier, John had been surprised when young Matt sidled into the barn to talk to him while he was grooming the horse for the man who had bought her. Matthew was a quiet boy, and he didn’t often initiate conversation. It turned out that Matthew didn’t want to make the move, he wanted to go to find work on a farm nearby, and he promised that he would send every penny of his earnings on.

  John had felt sad and rueful. He wouldn’t be needing a strong young man around in their new town life in the same way as he had on the farm, he wasn’t even sure what work would be available for himself, but he thought he just might be able to find work as a mason. Matthew had no talent for masonry; he was a good farmhand.

  “Well, son,” John said solemnly, looking down, “you are almost at leaving-school age, and while we will sorely miss you, I can see you need to be allowed to work at what you think you can do best. If you promise me you’ll go to school in Newton after the harvest and until spring planting, I’ll see if Tom and Mary would give you a bed in exchange for chores.”

  Standing up slowly from where he had been bent over, cleaning Bonny’s hoof, John put his hand on Matthew’s shoulder. “When you get yourself hired at the Spring Fair, best be sure to keep some of your money back for a drink and a pie with your mates,” he said gruffly, in an attempt to cover his embarrassment, “but Grace and the littl’uns and I will surely be grateful for any wages you can spare.”

  The deal was quickly done, and Matt went to live with his aunt and uncle at Chapel Croft, the farm where his grandfather, also named Matthew, had tenanted before him.

  On arrival in Haslingden, Maggie and the younger boys were full of the excitement of change, trying to take in the darkened buildings and smokestacks that made up their new landscape. The children ran in and out as Grace and John set about trying to sort their new home. In no time they realized that they would have to send some of their beds back with Tom to Slaidburn. They just didn’t have enough room for all that they had brought.

  Just as well Matthew didn’t come, John tho
ught. Where would we have put him?

  Maggie was full of curiosity about her new school. The next day she was going to lead John and Dick over and see when they could start. She earnestly hoped they would not seem too countrified in their new surroundings.

  Young Tom was trying to entertain baby James with sticks he was using to build a pen for his little carved pony. Ironically, it was little James, born James Edward Gardner, who was the biggest beneficiary of the move to Haslingden.

  “He’s an Isherwood now and no one need ever know different,” John assured Grace.

  Two More Boys

  For some reason, while the Highams and I had consulted the 1881 UK census and the 1901 census, we had yet to find our Isherwoods in the census of 1891. We knew that at some point the family had moved to Haslingden, but we had no idea how quickly they might have felt the need to move. Influenced by the “not guilty” verdict, we underestimated the extent of the social ostracism they would have been exposed to in Slaidburn by those who had been their friends and neighbours.

  When we did track the Isherwoods down in Haslingden through the 1891 census, many questions were answered, only to be replaced by new ones.

  The record, sent to me by my friends at the Lancashire Family History Society, revealed that by 1891 the Isherwood family was living at 9 Helmshore Road, Haslingden, and that the family had grown.

  John Green Isherwood, then forty-five, gave his occupation as farm bailiff, while Grace was thirty-two. The oldest child still at home was Margaret, fifteen, whose occupation was listed as cotton weaver. John, fourteen; Richard, eleven; Thomas, nine; and James Edward, seven, were all there, and there had been two new additions: William, five, and Joseph, four.