The Hard Life of Henry Taylor & Hannah Speight

My trip to York and Knaresborough was to learn a bit more about my great-great grandparents, Henry Taylor and Hannah Speight, and my great-grandfather Samuel Taylor.  My father had done some research on the Taylor family in the 1970s.  At that time, he garnered a lot of information from his sisters and an aunt.  However, on his trips to England, he couldn't get his research back into the early 1800s.  And he had a few gaps of his relatives who remained behind in England.  You have to remember his research was in the days before the Internet when one had to visit record offices and go through pages and pages of indexes before stumbling across relevant records.  So last night, I decided to do some research on census records from 1841 to 1891 on the Internet. Combining this with the information my father gleaned a few decades ago, here's the story of Henry Taylor and Hannah Speight and the tough life they had.

Census records can reveal a lot about the family tree from the names of the children and the year when they were born to what happened to them in between censuses.  Combine this with other information and you can solve a few mysteries.  Or create a lot more!

Henry Taylor & Hannah Speight
Henry Taylor was born in Knaresborough, Yorkshire County about 1811, although the census records indicate varying dates. He lived in the Knaresborough, Harrogate, and Leeds area throughout his life.  He married Hannah Speight (born about 1813) some time around 1835-36.  The actual date of their marriage is not known at this point in time although it would have been around this time as the 1841 census shows their eldest child as being 4 years old. To determine the exact date will require searching parish records.  

My father, in collaboration with his sister, Dorothy Ross (nee Moore), had discovered the names of the children from various sources but without any birth dates.  From census records last night I was able to determine the approximate year they were born ("born abt...").  So you see how census records are an invaluable tool when researching family roots - if you can find the census records.  And therein lies the challenge as you will see.

Again, new mysteries as two of the children don't appear on any of the census records and one child only appears once.  Possibly they died as infants or young children which was common in those days.  Anyhow, the children of Henry and Hannah Taylor were:

• Jane (born abt 1837.  Shown on 1841 census.  Not shown on 1851, 1861 census.  Died as a young child?)
• Sarah Ann (born abt 1839)
• John (born abt 1840)
• Samuel (born abt 1845)
• Alfred (born abt 1847)
• Emma (born abt 1849)
• Elisabeth (born abt 1855)
• Amelia Louisa (born abt 1860)
• William (died in child birth?  Not shown on 1841, 1851, 1861 census)
• Rachel (died in child birth?  Not shown on 1841, 1851, 1861 census)

Let's take a closer look at this information.  

Remember this was in the centuries before birth control and "The Pill" when the first child came within the first nine months of marriage and subsequent children were born within the next 18-24 months.

• When we examine the frequency of child birth, there are gaps between 1840-1845, 1849-1855, and 1855-1860.  
• Census records don’t show William or Rachel.  These children may have been born in these gaps but died at birth or as infants.  
• Other children may have been born but they too may have died as infants.  
•  Child Jane is shown on the 1841 census but does not appear on the 1851 census.  She may have died between these two time periods.  

Research on the BMD records may enlighten us on the fate of these children. So, you see how analyzing the census records can reveal more information and produce even more mysteries about the family and the children.  It also demonstrates how life was hard for women in those days.  

Wife Hannah died in 1861 at age 48, possibly from complications while giving birth to youngest daughter Amelia Louisa who was only a year old at the time of the 1861 census.  This was an old age to be bearing children.  Even today it can be life-threatening for a woman of that age to be pregnant.


Following Henry & Hannah On The Census Records
While the first census in England was taken in 1831, this census only listed the number of people in a village, parish or district.  Names were first recorded on the 1841 census but didn't include the place of birth.  The place of birth is a great help when researching the family roots.  This census shows the family living on Church Lane in Knaresborough.  Here's the 1841 census:

The next census, 1851, shows them living at 2 Regent Parade in Bilton-With-Harrogate which is next door to Knaresborough.  Henry's occupation is shown as agricultural labourer.

The 1861 census next shows the family living at 5 Horner St in Hunslet which is a suburb of Leeds.  Wife Hannah had died earlier that year on March 12, 1861 at the age of 48.  Somehow, my father found a copy of a memoriam card which indicates her death.

Henry, then employed as an iron foundry labourer, now had the full responsibility of rearing the six children who were still living at home.  Daughter Sarah Ann was not listed with the 1861 census record so she would probably have been married by this time (she would have been 23 years old).  The 1861 census shows the three older boys, John 20, Samuel 16, and Alfred 14, employed as iron tool maker, foundry labourer, and cloth dresser respectively.  The three younger daughters, Emma 12, Elisabeth 6, and Louisa Amelia 1, were still youngsters.  Here's the 1861 census.  

Trying to find Henry on the 1871 census was a bit tricky.  So we searched on the two younger children, Elisabeth and Louisa Amelia.  No luck with the Elisabeth search but we hit paydirt with Louisa.  The 1871 census shows Henry Taylor, widower, living in lodgings as a boarder with 11-year old daughter, Louisa Amelia, at 2 Spring Street, East Leeds in the ecclesiastical district of All Saints and working as a coal loader.  Presumably the three boys and daughter Emma had married and moved out.  We don’t know what had happened to Elisabeth who would now be 16 years of age.  Life continued to be very hard for Henry Taylor in the 10 intervening years after his wife's death. 

The 1881 census shows Henry Taylor, widower, living as a boarder at 3 Balm Green as a corn comb maker.  The head of the household is an Ann Stringer, widow, with her 24-year old son, John, who is occupied in the same profession as a corn table scale presser.    One can only guess what this industy was.  Perhaps a job in the spinning mills of Leeds.  And we can only speculate as to the relationship between the widow Stringer and the Widower Taylor!!

We lose track of Henry Taylor in the 1891 census.  There are several “Henry Taylors” listed  but there isn’t enough evidence to conclude that he is my great-great grandfather.  On one census there's a Henry Taylor, retired, who is living in the dreaded poor house.  Or, he may have died in the intervening years.

Our next step will be to try and search the birth, marriage, and death records.  Normally, as a start, this would be done online at the FreeReg.org.uk. website which is where I was able to do my research on the Moore family in Letheringsett.  This made things easier when I visited the Norfolk Archives over the past few weeks.  In the case of the Taylors, the information hasn't yet been transcribed and uploaded to the website.  So, this is going to require a visit to the county records office.  But that will be for another trip to England.