Jane Hill was baptised at Dudley St Thomas on 2 July 1809, daughter of Timothy and Maria Hill. She married John Hackett , also at Dudley St Thomas on 29 December 1828. The witnesses were Henry and Mary Whitehall but we know them as Whittall – Jane’s eldest sister and her husband. The name was fairly flexible at this time and as most people were illiterate they could not know whether the clerk or priest had spelled their name in a different way from the priest in their local church. And I have noted that Henry Whittall was a witness at most of the family weddings.
I have not been able to find out much about John Hackett. He was a collier and he was literate enough to sign the Register at his marriage. He was born in Staffordshire, we know from the 1841 Census, the only one he appears in. From the age given at his death he was born in about 1808 but how accurate that was we cannot know. I cannot find a baptism for him but then, neither can Ancestry, FreeREG, FamilySearch or FindMyPast nor anyone else researching this John Hackett on Ancestry. But it seems likely that he was fairly local and there were certainly Hacketts in Rowley Regis at this time.
Jane and John Hackett had nine children in the fourteen years they were married – Rebecca (1829), John (1831), William (1833), Thomas (1837), Jane (1839), Sarah (1840), Joseph (1843) , Alice and Leah, (both 1844, Alice in the first quarter, Leah in the last quarter.).
In the 1841 Census John and Jane are living in Perry’s Lake, with their first seven children Rebecca, aged 12, John, aged 10, William aged 8, Thomas aged 4, Jane, aged 2 and Sarah, aged 1. Thanks to a Death Certificate uploaded to Ancestry by another researcher, (Thank you, Nigel Croft) I know that John was killed in a fall of coal in a pit at Rowley Regis on 27 April 1844, his death registered by the Coroner so there was clearly an inquest, although I have not been able to find any press reports of it. John was buried at St Giles on the 30th April 1844, leaving Jane with eight children to care for and another on the way.
By 1851 Jane was back in the Hill enclave at Gadd’s Green, living in the household of her younger brother Joseph Hill, his wife and two daughters. With her are Thomas aged 14, Jane aged 12, Sarah 10, Joseph 8, Alice 7 and Leah 6. So the three eldest children were living elsewhere – Rebecca was married and her brother John was visiting her, William – by then about 18 – was, I think, lodging in Perry’s Lake, with the Griffiths family, he was working as a coal miner.
On one side of Joseph’s household were living David and Ann Priest, with their six children, on the other side a Thomas and Catherine Hill with their five youngest children (not in this direct line of Hills – as far as I know, so far…!) and beyond them Elijah and Ruth Whittall and their eight children. More connections in the Hill dynasty, to be discovered in due course, I am sure.
The 1861 Census finds Jane living in Rowley Village as a lodger in the household of John Taylor, 35, a nailer and only a couple of doors from the Ward Arms so probably in Hawes Lane. With her are Joseph, Alice, Leah and another child Ann who was 7.
Yet again, they are surrounded by familiar names. On one side is Jane’s son Thomas Hackett with his wife Jane and one year old son John, lodging with him is William Stokes with his wife Sarah nee Hackett, Jane’s daughter and their son John, aged 3 months. Next along the road is Elizabeth Hopewell with her family. Elizabeth was a widow but we have come across the family before and Elizabeth’s later born son Edward Hopewell (or Brooks or Oakwell which were names he used at various times) who, a few years later , was to marry Jane’s great-niece Phoebe Priest, the granddaughter of David and Ann Priest. And next along, with his family is Henry Taylor who may well be related to John Taylor– yet to be determined. The Taylors are another family who are not just a genealogical rabbit hole, they are a whole genealogical warren! But the pattern is the same. Even as the family spread out from their base at Gadd’s Green, they go only a short distance and even then, live surrounded by family connections.
By 1871, Jane Hackett had become Jane Taylor – yes, another Hill daughter marrying a Taylor… On the 9 July 1865 Jane, aged 56, married John Taylor – or Bridgwater, it says in the marriage record, aged 40, no details given of the groom’s father. The witnesses at the marriage are Jane’s son Thomas Hackett and his wife Jane. Presumably the John Taylor she had been lodging with in 1861. I have Bridgwaters in my family tree but let’s not go there. At least, not at this moment… but I see that Timothy Hill’s mother was a Bridgwater, too. As usual, the more I look at local families the more the Lost Hamlets web continues to expand. By now they were shown as living in Club Buildings and were there also in 1881.
Although John used the name Bridgwater at this marriage, thereafter they used Taylor in all records, including his death and burial. Other researchers on Ancestry show Bridgwater as his birth name which is quite possible, if his mother subsequently married a Taylor and he then used his step-father’s name, this was not uncommon. But I have been unable to find a baptism in the correct period for this John under either name.
Jane and John Hackett’s children
Rebecca 1829-1910
Rebecca was born in 1829 and was baptised at Dudley St Thomas on 16 August 1829. Her father’s occupation was shown as a Collier and his abode as Oldbury, although this might have included areas around Whiteheath. Certainly by 1841 the family were living in Perry’s Lake.
Rebecca married Samuel Barnsley on 24 May 1847 at St Giles, when she was living in Perry’s Lake and he in Spring Row. He was a stone quarry man, as was his father, also Samuel. Samuel had been baptised at Dudley St Thomas on 8 April 1827, the abode for his parents, Samuel and Charlotte Barnsley was shown as Oakham.
Their first daughter Priscilla was born in 1847, followed by nine more children – Sarah (1849), Samuel (1851), Mary Ann (1853), Rebecca (1853), John (1858), Mary J (1860), Lavinia (1862), Annie (1867) and Thomas (1869).
Samuel died and was buried at St Giles on 14 June 1893, aged 66 and of Church Row. Rebecca lived in Rowley for her whole life. She died in 1910 and was buried at St Giles, on 26 July 1910, aged 81, of 39, Hawes Lane.
John Hackett 1831-1909
John was baptised on 24 April 1831 at Dudley St Thomas and in 1841 he was living with his parents and siblings in Perry’s Lake. By 1851 he is shown as a visitor with his sister Rebecca and Samuel Barnsley in Perry’s Lake, aged 20.
On 20 June 1853, at Dudley St Thomas, John married Priscilla Groves, the marriage witnessed by his cousins Eliza Whittall and Joseph Hill. His occupation was shown as a miner. In 1861 they were living in Peartree Street, Old Hill with their daughters Catherine – sometimes Caroline, Ann and Louisa. Their neighbours? Well, I notice that on that one page of the census, with twenty five people listed, there are families named Priest (two families), Groves, Barnsley, and another family of Hacketts. On the previous page are Priests, Willetts, Halls. I think we can assume they were surrounded by kith and kin! A fourth daughter Martha came along in 1862 and a fifth, with the unusual name of Viannah or Vihannah in 1865. Martha and Vihannah were to marry Saunders brothers at a later time.
In 1871, the family are still in Reddall Hill, plus Alice Hackett, who is John’s sister. Although there is a child William, born in 1869, apparently listed as the child of John and Priscilla in this Census, it is my opinion that William is in fact the son of Alice Hackett, John’s sister who is staying with them as she is shown as the head of the sub-household and his name appears as her son below hers in the list. His birth was registered without a Mother’s Maiden Name which indicates that he was illegitimate. In any case, by this time Priscilla was about 50 so the child is unlikely to be hers. In this entry John is listed as Thomas, a coal miner but the remainder of the family is correct, so this must be an error, unless John had become John Thomas – not noted anywhere else.
By 1881, John and Priscilla had moved to Bowling Green, near Netherton – foreign parts, more than two miles from Rowley! Here John was shown as a nail maker but his two daughters Louisa and Martha are chain makers and Vian as a nail maker. In 1891, John and Priscilla were living in Brook Lane, Reddall Hill where John had apparently taken employment as a labourer in a Timber Yard. They were shown as lodgers but were living with Alfred and Martha Saunders, Martha being their daughter. Alfred is shown as Arthur in this census but is Alfred in all other records so this appears to be an error, he was also a chain maker, in those few miles from Rowley village, chain making was much in evidence in this area, nail making not appearing on this sheet of the census return.
Priscilla died in 1892 and was buried at St Lukes on 4 August 1892, aged 60 according to the Burial Register which is also the age shown on the death registration. But this is another instance of varying ages in different records. I cannot find any record of baptism for her. But in the 1841 Census she was shown as 15, so could have been up to 19, giving an approximate year of about 1826. In 1851, still living at home with her parents in Plants Green, she was 27, again computing to 1824. In 1861 she was 28(!), in 1871 51(1822), in 1881 61(1820), in 1891she was 69 (1822). So, somewhere between 1822 and 1824 is my best guess which would have made her much nearer to 70 than 60 at the time of her death. But she was several years older than her husband so perhaps she was coy about her age and possibly even her children did not know her true age.
John Hackett in the 1901 Census was with his sister Alice Fellows at 61 Enville Street, Stourbridge, a retired Miner and aged 70. He died in 1909 and was buried at St Luke’s Cradley Heath on 25 March 1909, aged 76 and his abode given as 24 Petford Street.
William Hackett (1833-?)
William was baptised on 15 September 1833 at Dudley St Thomas and is living with his family in Perry’s Lake, in the 1841 Census. In 1851, when his mother was a widow and had moved back to live with her brother, he was lodging with the Griffith family in Perrys Lake and working as a coal miner.
On 21 April 1856 William, son of John Hackett, miner, deceased, had married Matilda Ennis, daughter of Benjamin Ennis, at Dudley St Thomas and in 1861 they were living in Blackheath, with George (7), Elizabeth (4), and John, (1 month).
Elizabeth had been baptised at St Giles on 11 October 1857, I cannot find a baptism for John.
George Henry Ennis, son of Matilda Ennis, according to the record of his baptism at Dudley on 3 September 1854, had been born on 17th January 1853 so William was probably not his father, although it appears that George used the name Hackett thereafter.
It appears from a newspaper article I found that several of Matilda’s children died in early infancy, at least one of them of neglect and it also appears that by 1864 Matilda and William were separated. Matilda goes on to marry twice more before the 1871 Census, and in 1881 she was living with her third husband in Smethwick. That husband remarried in Derby in the last quarter of 1886 and I found that Matilda had died there, of diabetes, aged 51. I may do a separate piece about Matilda as her life was so complicated.
William is also elusive after this point. I cannot find William after 1861, but nor can I find a death for him. The situation with Matilda must have been deeply humiliating and the loss of several children with possible implications of neglect must have been utterly heart-breaking for him, coming as he did from a family where children, whatever their birth circumstances, seem to have been cherished and welcomed.
Perhaps William moved away, perhaps he emigrated, perhaps he simply chose to disappear – it is impossible to know but it is a sad story.
Thomas Hackett (1836-1919)
Thomas was baptised at Rowley Regis on 28 August 1836 and in 1841 he was in Perry’s Lake with his family. In 1851 they were in Gadd’s Green.
On 29 August 1859, Thomas married Sarah Jane Whittall, daughter of Samuel and Mary Whittall (nee Hipkiss) of Portway and in 1861 they and their one year old son John were living in Hawes Lane, (possibly Club Buildings although the census does not specify this), part of that little group of Hacketts, Taylors and Hopewells we have already noted in connection with Thomas’s mother Jane.
By the time of the 1871Census Thomas and Sarah Jane had joined other relatives in Barrow-in-Furness where they were living, along with other Black Country furnacemen, amongst a whole community who these pages of the census show were mainly drawn from Staffordshire and Worcestershire – later censuses show that Thomas was working at the Bessemer Steel Works who obviously recruited workers from the many blast furnaces in the Black Country.
Some statistics
In his book The Little Book of the Black Country [i]Michael Pearson gives some interesting numbers of industry in the Black Country.
In 1800 there were 160 collieries, producing 500,000 tons per annum.
By 1868, there were 540 collieries, producing 10,206,000 tons per annum.
In 1796 there were 14 blast furnaces, by 1806 there were 42.
By 1868, there were 167 and iron production ran at 855,000 tons of finished product from 2,100 puddling furnaces.
20,000 people were employed in the Black Country Iron Trade which had doubled in 68 years. So there was plenty of experience for Barrow-in-Furness to call on.
By 1860, within five miles of Dudley, there were:
44 pits
181 blast furnaces
118 iron works
79 rolling mills
1,500 puddling furnaces.
No wonder the Black Country was black!
But although these numbers obviously declined and the heavy industry now disappeared I can remember looking out from the Grammar School on Hawes Lane in the winter and seeing the glow of numerous furnaces even in the early 1960s. Today the closure of some of the last remaining blast furnaces in the country has just been narrowly averted – what a change. So many skills, so much experience gone – which can probably never be recovered. Let’s hope we don’t suddenly need to have a steel industry again.
Steel Working in Barrow-in-Furness
The Morecombe Bay Partnership say the following about the Iron Works there:
“In 1859 Schneider, Hannay and Company established the iron works in Hindpool, marking the beginning of what would be the largest iron and steel works in the world. Twelve blast furnaces were built in the 1860s producing 5000 to 5550 tones of iron each week. In 1866 18 Bessemer convertors started making steel from the iron smelted at the iron works. By 1903 7000 tons of steel was produced a week. A large amount of the steel was used to make rails for railways all over the world. From 1962 no new steel was made, instead scrap was melted to produce steel. The steel works became part of British Steel in 1964 and the works closed in 1983. All that is left is the slag banks which have now been landscaped and opened from walkers.”[ii]
By 1871 Thomas and Sarah Jane had had four children – John (1860-), Mary Jane (1867- born in Rowley), Alice (1869 – born in Barrow), and Eliza (1870). They went on to have Ellen (1873), Thomas (1875), Sarah (1876), Louise (1878), Rose (1880), and Frederick (1882), ten in all. And boarding with them in the same house in 1871 were Sarah Jane’s brother Reuben Whithall (24), plus Benjamin Tibbetts (22), Samuel Ellis (18) (from a distant part of the country called Wednesbury so not a familiar name!), and one other Rowley man whose name I cannot read, also 18. And one 11 year old servant girl. Imagine the washing and cooking required to look after three children under five and those five men working in hot filthy conditions.
Thomas and Sarah stayed in Barrow-in-Furness for the rest of their lives, Sarah appears to have died between the 1891 census when she was still in Barrow, listed as a grocer at 2 Lincoln Street, with her family and 1901 when Thomas is listed with a different wife.
This article in the Barrow Herald, dated 14 September 1895, seems to indicate that Sarah was still alive and well and still in Barrow in 1895 but in Newbarns, not Lincoln Street. I cannot find a death registration or a burial for a Sarah Hackett of the right age in the years between 1891 and 1901. Had Thomas and Sarah separated?
Copyright BNLibrary.
Thomas appears to have married again, to Alice Standbridge in Coventry in 1897. Alice’s initials appear differently in different records so it has not been possible to find her before the marriage to Thomas.
Thomas died in Barrow in January 1919, a few years after Alice. I cannot trace a burial for Sarah Jane but Thomas and Alice were buried in the same grave so what happened to Sarah is something of a mystery.
Jane Hackett (1839-1907)
Jane was baptised on 14 April 1939 at St Giles, Rowley Regis. She was at home with her family in 1841 and 1851. In 1861, there is a Jane Hackett, aged 23 and born in Rowley, living as a lodger in Cherry Orchard, Old Hill, with William Chapman and his family. Also lodging with the Chapmans is a miner named Thomas Bagley, aged 24 born in Dudley. I have no real evidence that this is the correct Jane but she is the only single Jane Hackett of the correct age in the area. Jane did not die or marry between 1851 and 1861, and I cannot find her living with any of her family so it is probable that this is her.
In 1861 Jane had a daughter Ann, followed by George in 1864, Maria in 1867, William in 1869, Sarah in 1874, and Jane in 1876. During the whole of this time Jane Hackett was apparently a ‘lodger’ in the household of Thomas Bagley, the one who had also been lodging in the same house as Jane in 1861. The births of all of these children were registered as illegitimate. Jane is shown as Hackett and ‘boarder’ in 1871 and Bagley in later censuses and the children were shown as the children of Thomas Bagley but listed as Hackett. Until 1881 when Jane is shown as the wife of Thomas Bagley and all the children are shown as his children and listed as Bagley, the name most of them appeared to have used. So it seems extremely likely that Thomas Bagley was the father of them all.
In 1880 a last child was born but this one, Thomas, was registered as Bagley with a MMN of Hackett and was always known as Bagley. This might be taken to imply that Thomas Bagley and Jane Hackett had married by this time. However, I cannot find a marriage for Jane Hackett and Thomas Bagley at any time anywhere in the GRO records.
In 1901 Jane can be found in Harborne, listed as Jane Bagley, widow, visiting her married daughter Maria.
Jane died and her death was registered as that of Jane Bagley aged 69, of Elbow Street, Old Hill and she was buried as Jane Bagley in St Giles on 15 May 1907. One can, of course, in law, call oneself any name one likes, providing we do not do so to deceive and it appears that for nearly forty years Jane was to all intents and purposes, the wife of Thomas Bagley. There is no obvious reason why they did not marry, although it seems likely that Thomas was himself illegitimate so perhaps he saw no need. Or perhaps he had a previous wife living, although he described himself in censuses as unmarried and I cannot find such a marriage. We shall never know.
Sarah Hackett (1840-1865)
Sarah was baptised at St Giles, Rowley Regis on 8 Jun 1840.
On 19 September 1859 Sarah married William Stokes at Halesowen and in the 1861 Census she and William and their son John, aged 3 months are living with Sarah’s brother Thomas Hackett in Hawes Lane, next to Sarah’s mother Jane. In 1864 they had a daughter Ann but Sarah died on 30 August 1865, of Typhoid Fever, having been ill for three weeks. She was buried at St Giles aged 26, on 3 September 1865.
It is possible that John was the baby John Stokes of the Village, aged 11 weeks who was buried at St Giles on 9 May 1861 .There were three John Stokes born in the first quarter of the Dudley RD but this is the only baby of that name buried in 1861 in the area around Rowley which does seem a bit of a coincidence. I cannot find John with his father after that date. Nor can I find William Stokes with Ann in the next census, nor in fact William himself with any certainty. So the whole family seems to have disappeared, sadly. It is possible that they moved to a distant area but I cannot find them, if they did.
Joseph Hackett (1841-1925)
Joseph was a dream to research, he was where I expected him to be, when I expected him to be, no mysteries, no disappearances, such a pleasure!
Joseph was baptised on 20 November 1842 at St Giles. Born a few months too late for the 1841 Census, he was living with his mother in the 1851 and 1861 censuses. On 16 July 1865 Joseph married Sarah Ann Perry at St Giles, Rowley Regis. Sarah’s family lived in Rowley village, with their eleven children, next to the Ring of Bells pub which was opposite the parish church (as you might guess from the name of the pub!).
Sarah had an illegitimate daughter Sarah Jane in 1864 and she lived thereafter as their daughter and was listed as Hackett in censuses. However, when Sarah Jane married in 1895, she used the name Perry, not Hackett and gave no details of her father so it seems that Joseph was not her father.
Joseph and Sarah lived on Dudley Road, Cock Green for the rest of their lives and Joseph worked as a coal miner all of his life. In 1911, aged 68, he was still working as a miner/loader (underground) although by 1921 – when he was 79 and six months, he was finally described in the census as retired. The ‘old age pension’ had been introduced on 1 January 1909 with a non-contributory pension of 5 shillings (25p) per week to individuals aged 70 or over, a significant step in providing financial security for the elderly.
They had fourteen children, according to the 1911 Census, although I can only find birth registrations for thirteen, including Sarah Jane. Of these two had died so twelve survived. If a child was born dead that birth would not have been registered but no doubt the couple would have counted such a child as one of their own which may account for the different number. So, there came Hannah in 1866, Phebe in 1867, Thomas in 1868, Joseph in 1870, Polly in 1872, Harriet in 1875, John in 1877 who died in 1878, Benjamin in 1879, Selina in 1882, Jim in 1885 and Clara in 1889.
Sarah died in 1924, and was buried at St Giles on 26 August, aged 80. They had been married for 59 years. Joseph followed barely six months later and was buried at St Giles on 18 April 1925, aged 83 and of Dudley Road where they had lived all their married life.
Another fourteen grandchildren for John and Jane Hackett, most of whom appear to have stayed in the Rowley area.
Alice Hackett (1843-1924)
Alice was baptised on 16 July 1843 at St Giles, Rowley Regis. In 1851 and 1861 she was living with her mother, in Gadd’s Green and then Hawes Lane. In 1869, it appears that Alice had a son William, as he is listed after her in Reddall Hill, where she was lodging with her older brother John and his family. I think that this is the William Hacket, aged 2, of the village who was buried at St Giles on 14 Jun 1872 as I cannot find this William after that date and he is certainly not living with his mother at any later points of record.
On 14 October 1872, Alice married Noah Fellows who was a maltster and in 1881 they were living with her mother and Jane’s new husband John Taylor in Hawes Lane, together with their children John Thomas (1873), Ruth (1875), Noah (1877) and Alice (1879). Another son Joseph was born in 1882 and William in 1885.
Noah Fellows, you think – well, that’s a distinctive name, should be easy to track him. Except that there were three Noah Fellows born, one in the September quarter of 1846 in the Dudley RD, one in the following quarter in the Stourbridge RD and one in Shifnal in Shropshire in June 1848. I’m sure they are all closely related and in the same family at some point but fortunately in censuses, the two I am interested in each usually say where they were born – in Cradley or in West Bromwich. Alice married the Noah who was born in Cradley and at a later stage they moved back to Cradley, and then to Wolleston.
Noah died in 1914. Alice died in January 1924, in Stourbridge. Their children seem to have settled slightly further afield than most of the Hill decendants, settling either in the Stourbridge area, where Noah’s family were from, or in Birmingham.
Leah Hackett (1844-1864)
Leah was baptised on 26 January 1845 at St Giles. In 1851 she was living with her mother in Gadd’s Green in her uncle Joseph’s household. In 1861 she was again, aged 16, with her mother in Hawes Lane where her mother was lodging with John Taylor.
In the last quarter of 1862, Leah married Titus Hadley somewhere in the Dudley RD. Unfortunately I cannot find any details of where this marriage took place or exactly when. Both of these parties have unusual names and both appear to be the only ones born in the relevant period so it would look easy to trace them. It ain’t necessarily so…
I was able to find two men named Titus Hadley, in the 1861 Census, one born in 1842, and the other in 1845. One of these, Thomas Titus Hadley, was living with his parents and family in Shepherd’s Fold in Blackheath. The other, born in Causeway Green, off Penncrickett Lane, was living in Club Buildings with his grandmother Martha Westwood, aunt Phoebe Westwood and sister Martha Hadley. This seems the likely candidate to me, given the, by now, frequently evidenced tendency of local people in this area to marry their neighbours. Leah was just along the road in Hawes Lane at this time.
Which of these is the Titus Hadley referred to in this press cutting, I am not sure.
Copyright: BNLibrary
It coincides almost exactly with the Rowley Titus’s later marriage to Emma after Leah’s death, the paternity hearing being reported in September 1865 and Titus married Emma in October 1865 which may or may not be relevant. Or this may have been the other Titus Hadley.
It seems likely that Titus and Leah Hadley were the parents of Samuel Hadley, whose birth was registered in the first quarter of 1864 and who was buried on 21 July 1864 at St Giles, aged 6 months and of Club Buildings.
Leah died and was buried on 4 April 1864, aged 21 (according to the Burial Register entry although her death registration has her age as 19 – let’s say she was about 20… ), three months before baby Samuel.
There were actually three male children born to Hadley/Hackett parents in just three years – John in 1862, Samuel in early 1864 and William in the last quarter of 1864. (Another child, Edward was born to this combination in 1866 when Leah had been dead for two years. So there must have been another Hadley/Hackett marriage in the village. I will probably find it at some point.) So William cannot have been their child but John possibly could. I cannot tell unless I buy the birth certificates, a temptation I am currently resisting. However, I cannot find baptisms for John or Samuel, nor a burial for John so these are unknowns at present. Later Hadleys were certainly active Methodists so it is possible that babies were baptised in the Methodist tradition, for which records are patchy at this period.
After Leah’s death, Titus re-married to Emma Whithall in October 1865 at Halesowen, (who was on the same page in the 1861 census, living with her father William in Club Buildings.) They had four sons, Joseph, Titus, Alfred and Jason and lived in Birmingham Road and Station Road, Blackheath until Titus’s death. He was buried on 6 May 1922 in St Giles, aged 81.
So these were the nine children of John and Jane Hackett, nee Hill.
Ann Hackett 1854-1923
And then there was Ann Hackett, the daughter apparently born to the widowed Jane Hackett on 7 February 1854 in Rowley village, father unknown. Oddly, this Ann seems to have been baptised as the daughter of Jane Hackett of the village, but not until 2 Mar 1868, when she would have been fourteen. In 1861 and in 1871, Ann is living with her mother and step-father.
I do wonder whether Ann was actually the daughter of Jane Hackett’s daughter Jane. Jane Hackett, nee Hill would have been 45 in 1854, her daughter Jane would have been 15 so either would be possible. There is no way of telling from the birth certificate , it merely says Jane Hackett as the mother. However, in the censuses, Jane Hackett Senior describes Ann as her daughter and I have left her as that in the family tree. It was not unusual for parents to raise a grandchild, particularly one born illegitimately to a young girl so it does seem possible to me. The only thing which gives me pause is that Jane named her own first-born daughter of her marriage, in 1861, Ann. Although that was also the name of her husband’s mother so he could have decided that.
In 1873, Ann Hackett married Benjamin Tibbetts in the Ulverston Registration District, presumably the same Benjamin Tibbetts who had been lodging with Ann’s half brother (or uncle!) Thomas in Barrow-in-Furness in the 1871 Census and presumably they married in Barrow.
Elizabeth was the first child born to Benjamin and Ann, she was born in 1874 in Barrow-in-Furness. But by 1876, when their second daughter Annie was born they were back in Rowley Regis, living in Hawes Lane in the 1881 Census. The Tibbetts family lived in Hawes Lane until by 1901 they were at 70 Rowley Village. Later children were William Benjamin (1882), Jane (1883-1890), Mary (1886), John Thomas (1888), Harry (1890), George Frederick (1894) and Lucy (1902).
In the 1911 Census, which asks how many children were born alive in the present marriage and whether they were still alive, Ann says that there were thirteen children, of whom 7 were alive. I can only find birth registrations for nine, however but spelling errors in one or other of the surnames might have prevented me from finding the others.
In 1821, Ann was still living in 7 Hawes Lane and was recorded as a “Midwife Certificated”, so apparently still working at 68 years and 4 months. No doubt she would have been a familiar figure in the local community. By 1821 Annie was lised as a widow and there is a death registration for a Benjamin Tibbetts in the last quarter of 1915 which is for someone of the correct age; however, I cannot find a burial for him. He had worked as a labourer at the quarry for the whole of his working life in Rowley, perhaps he is one of those anonymous faces we see in old photographs of quarry workers.
Annie died on 4 Nov 1923 and was buried at St Giles on the 8th November, aged 70.
Finally…
John Taylor, or Bridgwater, second husband of Jane,died in 1882 aged 55 and was buried at St Giles on 25th April.
Jane Taylor, previously Hackett, nee Hill of Club Buildings, survived him by four years and died in 1886, aged 77 and was buried at St Giles on 21 July 1886.
Jane Taylor, nee Hill, had at least 9, probably 10 children and they in turn added at least 69 great-grandchildren to Timothy and Maria Hill’s dynasty.
Only two more of Timothy and Maria’s children to come in the next instalment, with possibly another diversion en route!
[i] The Little Book of the Black Country by Michael Pearson, The History Press. ISBN 978 0 7524 8783 0
[ii] https://www.recordingmorecambebay.org.uk/content/stories/iron-steel-works-barrow-furness
rowleyregislosthamlets.co.uk 