I've written here before about the hard life that was the lot of women in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Large families were the norm and, of itself, this must have sapped the bodily strength of many, while it was also they who bore the burden of running house and home. If they could do something else to bring in a few shillings towards feeding the family, that was a bonus. I learned recently of one whose burden was harder than many, and ended in tragedy.
Betsey Muddock (not to be confused with Muttock or Murdock!) was born in the Suffolk village of Redlingfield in the summer of 1854. She was the third daughter and fourth child of a farm labourer, in a family that eventually grew to ten children. She lived in an age when many young women of her years had left their family and were in service, learning skills that could lead them towards either marriage or a fulfilling independent adult life.
By contrast, the 1871 census shows that Betsey was still at home. She contributed to the family budget by her work as a charwoman. As a sixteen-year-old, she was perhaps glad that she could gain her essential skills helping to look after the younger members of her family which, in the last year, had grown by two more: her own son George had been born just three months before her youngest sister.
The following summer, when she was barely eighteen, Betsey married my first cousin three times removed, John Churchyard. Whether or not he was the father of her child, we can't say, but he was willing to acknowledge George as his son at the next census, the eldest of the five children listed.
John was known as a good, kind and sensible man, 'a better or more peaceable neighbour could not be found'. These descriptions, however, were all circumscribed with the phrase 'when sober', for John was a slave to the bottle. On such occasions, he was a beast, and threatened or ill-treated his wife on many occasions. Sometimes she would have to leave him and take refuge with her father, who was still living in Redlingfield, some three or four miles away from their family home in Cross Street, Hoxne.
As well as, or possibly as a result of, his alcohol problem, John wasn't a good provider for his family. Known to be lazy and dissolute, he had no regular employment. In 1881 he was described as a bricklayer, in 1891 as a ratcatcher, and four years later as a warrener. In situations such as these, it's hard to distinguish between cause and effect. Was it the drink that deterred local farmers from setting him on, or did the fact of his not being able to find regular work lead to feelings of inadequacy and turn him to drink? Betsey, on the other hand, was hardworking and industrious and earned a living charing or doing other work.
On 27th September, 1895, she came home from her work at the local pub in the later afternoon, gathered up some washing and went indoors. John roused himself from the couch where he had been for some while, it seems, took his gun from its place and told her 'I will shoot you.' He did so, and then turned the gun on himself.
The local newspaper, as was the custom, carried all the gory details of the tragedy, but also confirms the shape of the family, as gleaned from the formal records. Two particular items are of genealogical interest. One is in regard to Betsey's age. In 1881, this was given as 28, some two years more than her actual years, and in 1891, 39. John was born in 1845, so was about nine years older; did he know how young she was, and adjust her age to look a bit more 'respectable', given the age of their oldest son? The civil record of her death shows her age as 45, which concurs with the census. However someone knew otherwise, despite some of their children stating that they didn't know their parents' ages, for the burial register gives her age as 39.
The other curiosity is that the youngest child who, at the age of six, had the traumatic experience of seeing her mother killed, is named in the newspaper as Elizabeth. Her birth was registered as Honor Louisa, and the 1891 census refers to her as Lucy, presumably a corruption of Louisa. My guess is that the reporter heard her being referred to as Lucy and, having mis-heard this as 'Lizzy', decided to formalise this for publication. Her mother's birth was registered as Betsey, and she was known by this name at each census; the newspaper account avoids any difficulty by referring to her as 'Mrs Churchyard' or 'his wife', while her death was registered as Elizabeth.
The 1901 census reveals that, after this ghastly episode, the family was scattered to the four winds. Young Elizabeth - maybe my name-corruption theory had taken effect long before ever the newspaper got involved, for she was still known thus - was living with one of Betsey's married sisters in Church Street, Stradbroke. Fred and Frank by then were working as farm labourers, and living with another aunt and uncle in Mendham, on the Norfolk border beyond Harleston. James, who had been living across the road from the family home at the time of his parents' death, was married within weeks of that event. In 1901, he was living with his wife and three children at the windmill in Stradbroke Road, Hoxne, where he worked as a carter. Another miller's carter, Albert Rowe, lived in Cross Street, where he and his wife provided board and lodging to James's brother John, who worked as a farm labourer.
Florence, almost 20 at the time, was described in the newspaper as 'having been away from home for a couple of weeks'. If she had been living there, she might have left for her own safety, for she was already a mother herself, having given birth to a daughter earlier in the year. She had already left home before the previous census, at which time she was a general servant to farmer John Bolton at the Grove in Upper Street, Billingford. By 1901 she had established herself at Norton in West Suffolk, where she and her brother Leonard, along with her two daughters, were living with Charles Laflin, whose wife was another of the late Betsey's sisters. Florence was described as a monthly nurse, while Leonard was a farm labourer.
I could find no reference in the 1901 census of Betsey's eldest son, George, born before her marriage, nor to her son Charles, born between Leonard and Frank. As is often the case, certain details of the story either don't fit exactly together, or are missing and have been guessed at. In particular the ages of the aunts with whom the children were found didn't exactly match their appearance in the censuses of 1861 and 1871, and the birthplace of one is given as Southwold instead of Redlingfield, but relevant marriage records serve to confirm their status.
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