Sarah Mingings (1796-1864) and Lancelot Bird (1792- )
North Cumberland in 1800 showing significant places in Sarah’s life: Gretna (Scotland); Great Orton; Carlisle; Thursby; Castle Carrock
The parish of Great Orton sits five miles south of Carlisle and, if you climb to Parson’s Thorn, its highest point, it is possible to see no fewer than fifteen Cumberland churches, as well as several across the border in Scotland. Scotland’s proximity had played a major part in the area’s history: in 1788, when Thomas Mingings married Lucy Wilkinson, there were many who could still remember Charles Stuart, the Young Pretender, capturing Carlisle thirty years earlier without a fight and proclaiming himself King of England from the marketplace. There were clearly local sympathisers to the Jacobite cause – most of whose leaders suffered terrible deaths a few months later – but Orton also suffered from Scottish raiders. To defend itself, the whole village was surrounded by a ditch and embankment, and the roads going North and West were protected by double ditches which, at night, had large chains locked across the roads to make the road impassable.
Although Thomas’ family had moved from Scotland only a few generations earlier, by the time of his marriage he would have seen himself as English as his wife Lucy felt. Where there may have been a difference, however, was in the social standing of the two families. Thomas was described as a labourer throughout his life, whereas Lucy’s brother John had moved to London and was soon to become a Doctor of Divinity and a wealthy man. It would have been unusual to have done that without some support and encouragement from his family.
Thomas and Lucy were married for fewer than ten years, as Lucy died in 1798 when only thirty-three, leaving five children under ten, the youngest of whom, Sarah, was not yet two. Lucy wasn’t buried in Orton where she had been living, but was taken the few miles back to where she was born. If her father had never approved of the original marriage, now he was reclaiming her; but the truth was probably less interesting.
Thomas didn’t remarry for five years, so it is not clear who brought the five children up, but his second marriage to Ruth Steele, followed by a short move across the parish to the neighbouring hamlet of Baldwinholme, added five more surviving children to the family. Some of the children may have attended the local school in Orton, where Thomas Pattinson was the teacher for nearly fifty years until his death in 1811. In 1795 money had been left to educate ten local poor children and, in a village of only about 200 people, it would seem likely that some of the Mingens children might have benefited from this gift. Certainly a few of the Mingens went on to become clerks in their own villages and towns, so had either been educated at school or by their mother.
During the first part of the 19th century Cumberland had the highest illegitimacy rate in the country. Farmers across the country, especially those with small acreages that they worked by themselves, would often wait to marry until their future wife was pregnant; the farm needed helpers to survive and it wouldn’t do to marry and then find that you couldn’t have children. In Cumberland, though, it seemed that they often took things a stage further, and waited until the first child was born before marrying. At least four of Thomas’ daughters, including Sarah, went beyond that and had several illegitimate children (Note 1), often by different fathers. Were their morals different from others? Had the Napoleonic War made it harder to find a husband? Were the Mingings girls particularly attractive to men or particularly hot-headed? Were relationships between the children and their stepmother strained? Whatever the reason, it seemed that Thomas did not disapprove because he spent some years living with one of his daughters and her (illegitimate) son.
Sarah's first child was born in 1818. A bastardy order lists Lancelot Bird as the father. His father, a wealthy farmer, was required to pay £100 (over £7000 at 2023 prices) towards the upkeep of the child. There is some evidence that Sarah wanted to marry Lancelot (but perhaps his father forbade it): she became pregnant again in 1820 and there is no evidence that anyone was required to pay maintenance. Was Lancelot the father again? A year later, with her third child, a William Hetherington from Burgh-on-Sands was named as the father, but her next child was named Lanty, presumably after Lancelot (her first two children had been girls). Lancelot died in 1825, when only 33; and this child wasn't baptised until 1829, but later censuses suggest he had been born in about 1822/3, so Lancelot coold well have been the father. Whether this is a tragic story about a cople who weren't allowed to marry can't be proved, but it seems a possiblity. Throughout all this, Sarah was probably still living at home. With no partner to support her, and times still difficult, it would have been the sensible way to survive. Life in and around Carlisle continued to be very hard. William Farish, a weaver in Caldewgate, wrote that:
"The winter following the hot summer of 1826 was a terrible one for the working people everywhere, and the hardships fell with unwonted severity upon the North-country weavers. The benevolence of the gentry was taxed to the uttermost to preserve their poorer neighbours from actual starvation. To utilise these gifts in Carlisle, the weavers were employed to construct the walk - the Weavers' Bank leading from the Castle to Eden Bridges - which still remains as memorial to the honour of some, and a reproach to those others who wickedly helped to maintain the iniquitous bread tax in the face of a starving community. Unsound barley meal that year sold for as much as four shillings a stone" - half the week's wage of a common labourer - "while wheat flour and butcher's meat were wholly beyond the reach of the ordinary workman."
"It was no uncommon thing for our house to be without bread for weeks together: and I cannot remember to have ever seen, in my very early years, a joint of meat of any kind on my father's table; oatmeal porridge and potatoes, with an occasional taste of bacon, being our principal food. Once, for six long and weary weeks at a spell, no bread entered the door; that extreme restraint being needed to enable my father to pay a few shillings of rent in arrears..... I well remember the 'love-feast' that ended that period of semi-fast, and the happiness with which my father filled my little hand with the first crust of bread."
Carlisle in 1810. The city barely extends beyond the old walls. The areas Caldewgate and Shaddongate, soon to be the centre of industrial activity, are still fields.
The views that would have greeted Sarah and Alexander on their way to Gretna: Carlisle from the. South (left) and North in 1828
In 1827, when Ann was nearly ten years old, Sarah had her fourth child (each probably by a different father) and called her Sarah. As before, the father was named - Alexander Kirk - but this time Sarah married the father shortly after the baby was born, and his name appears in the baptismal records. Alexander was only a labourer himself, but it is again interesting to speculate on what the families thought. Both Sarah and Alexander were living on the southern edges of Carlisle at the time, but they didn’t marry in Carlisle, or in Orton. Instead they travelled to Gretna, a favourite place for couples marrying without their parents’ permission, and married there. A week later, their marriage was announced in the Carlisle Journal. Who paid for the notice, and why was it put there? Were the couple rubbing salt in the wounds or were parents accepting what had happened? Alexander may have been married before - there is an Alexander Kirk from Carlisle who had married at Gretna in 1819 - but, if so, he doesn’t appear to have had any children from that marriage.
Over the next ten years Alexander and Sarah had five children, some born in Carlisle, and others in Cummersdale, a small village just south of Carlisle; but by 1839 they were living in Caldewgate, just south of the old city walls. Twenty years earlier this area had been fields, but now it was the industrial centre for Carlisle, and not a pleasant place to live. Dixons already employed thousands in their mill (and were soon to build a tower, which at over 300’, was the tallest such tower in Europe), and Fergusons built their first factory there in 1825.
Caldewgate, although part of the industrial area, was not quite as depressing as the next door Shaddongate, about which one writer said:
''Such was the state of lawlessness in Shaddongate in 1826, the Carlisle Patriot despaired: “This is a most woeful state of society.”
There had been a riot there that year with loss of life and the Patriot said it had been declared a “free city”, where “no constable dare execute a warrant”.
One inhabitant said “he and his family have scarcely had any sleep for four or five nights; that they live in continual terror and dare not quit the house after a certain hour at night and are not safe in it for stones”.''
Sarah cannot have viewed her future with much optimism, yet possible good fortune was about to arrive. Sarah’s uncle, the Rev John Fletcher Wilkinson, had died in 1828. After a career that had taken him to, amongst other places, St Helena, he had died a Doctor of Divinity in London. He was clearly a wealthy man: in 1812, when living in Cavendish Square, he had been robbed of £15 by a servant, and during the trial he stated that his pocket book had contained £275 at the time (worth about £3,500 in 2009). Having no children, he had left everything to be divided between the children of his five siblings, one of which was Lucy, Sarah’s mother. Sarah’s share of the will may only have been about a £100, but that was a very significant amount to her. Touchingly, her uncle will stated that he did not expect his family to come down from Cumberland to London for his funeral, but there appears to have been some problems in passing on the money because, in 1835, Alexander and Sarah took John Wilkinson’s executors to court for non-payment of what was due. The details of the case rival Jarndyce v Jarndyce for their complexity and involve other beneficiaries who had died before the will was proved, and were also beneficiaries from third wills. Sarah, who could not even sign her name, must have found the complexities difficult to understand, and one assumes that Alexander was heavily involved with the lawyers. As the case progressed, they must have felt that their financial prospects appeared good; but any thoughts that their lives had turned a corner were premature. Later that year Alexander was knocked down by a cart that overturned in the road in Shaddongate, and he died of his injuries shortly afterwards. Once again, Sarah was a single mother with five young children at home, and two older ones that had probably left home. In 1841 she was described as ‘independent’ which suggests that her bequest had finally come through, and her two older children were working as servants in nearby villages.
Ferguson's factory shortly after the Kirks moved nearby
Ann (Nanny), the eldest, was living in Castle Carrock, where she had met Matthew Ridley a local farmer’s son. Most local farms were small, large enough to keep a family, but little more. The Ridleys, however, had run larger farms for generations, and employed several workers beyond their immediate family. Ann made no attempt to hide to hide her illegitimacy from her future husband; it was not uncommon for people to invent father’s names when asked to fill in their marriage certificate, but Ann left the relevant space blank. Her mother’s new found status may have helped; but perhaps illegitimacy was simply not an issue. Later in the year, Sarah herself married again. Her husband, John Gibson, was several years younger than she was, and also widowed, but not, it seems, with any children of his own to support.
Where did Sarah now stand in society? She was illiterate – she couldn’t even sign her own name – and yet at least two of her brothers were clerks: one earned his living through being one in a local business, while another, although an agricultural labourer, was also the parish clerk. Sarah’s uncle was an educated man, so it doesn’t seem unreasonable to assume that her mother might also have been literate. Her mother’s early death may have meant that Ann didn’t have the opportunity to learn what her siblings may have done (although at least one younger sister was also illiterate). Despite her lack of learning, she now had some money, and was respectably married, although she continued to live on the industrial part of Carlisle which, with a tall chimney belching out fumes from eight mills cannot have been healthy. An outbreak of cholera had hit Carlisle in 1832 (and another would follow in 1848) and no doubt the area where Sarah lived had more than its share of the victims.
The writer quoted earlier says that:
''On an early morning visit to Shaddongate in 1844, an observer said: “We sauntered slowly along watching the long clouds of smoke shoot forth from Dixon’s Chimney and inclined to ponder over the conditions and habits of the men who crowded past us in increasing numbers; for presently the bells of the various factories were heard and a stream of workmen almost instantaneously poured along the streets.”''
He questioned a woman ''“why she would never go in that direction”. She replied: “There’s so many vulgar children” and added “so many weavers, that one can’t get past”.''
Lancelot's discharge papers showing his 'indifferent' record
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Indian Mutiny medal
Sarah’s eldest child was now happily married as well, but Lanty, her eldest son was restless (Note 2); and like many others who wanted to leave their poor life, joined the army. He chose the Royal Artillery and by 1851 was a gunner and driver stationed in Plymouth, several hundred miles from home. There he met and married a local girl but, unlike his elder sister, hid his illegitimacy by inventing a father for the marriage certificate. For the rest of his life he had also taken five years off his age and changed his surname to Minns; although the latter may be more to do with his illiteracy and accent, rather than any deliberate act. Did Sarah know that Lanty/Lancelot had got married, or even that he was in the army? Or that, a year later he had had a daughter? Despite having a daughter, his marriage, too, was destined to be an unhappy one. Shortly after the birth of his child, he was sent abroad where he fought in the Indian Mutiny and Sebastovol during the Crimean war. In 1854 he had been on board the ship Resolute when is was sunk during a great storm which wrecked several ships. He was one of four Gunners guarding the ammunition stores when the ship had been required to anchor outisde the safe harbour despite her captain's request for safe anchor. Only ten of those on board survived and an eye witness account of the sinking written by the only other surviving Gunner states that a 'gunner named Minns, who was saved with me, went out of his mind and was sent home. I never saw him again. In fact Lancelot was not sent home then, but he clearly found the incident deeply distressing (Note 3).
The Royal Artillery at Sevastobol
Altogether Lanty spent five years abroad during his service that ended in 1870. Although winning medals, his discharge papers make it clear that he was court martialled four times and had a drink problem; the restlessness that caused him to join the army initially never went away. By 1861 his wife Elizabeth had re-married, living with her new in-laws in Essex, with her daughter Emily described as a visitor.(Note 4) Perhaps she had been told that Lancelot had died. Perhaps she and Lancelot had discussed separation when he returned to England between trips abroad. Whatever the reason, he appears to have headed for Newcastle when discharged, rather than Essex, and was certainly living in Northumberland when he died in 1884, but far enough from Carlisle to be as inaccessible as if he were still in Plymouth.
Sarah had lost touch with Lanty, but the rest of her family remained nearby. Most of her siblings and half-siblings had families of their own, and lived locally, although the youngest, Thomas, took the decision to emigrate to Australia, where gold had recently been discovered in New South Wales. In 1852, with his young family and 800 other emigrants, he set sail from Birkenhead aboard the Ticeronderoga. The voyage was a disaster. The double deck nature of the ship meant that ventilation was poor, damp was rife, and over 300 of the passengers caught typhoid. Thomas arrived in Australia alive, but died in quarantine shortly afterwards, and one of his sons had died on the journey. His widow and two other children were left to look after themselves (oddly, the official records state that both Sarah and Henry, her eight year-old son were literate). A contemporary report said:
"The ship, especially the lower part was in a most filthy state, and did not appear to have been cleaned for weeks, the stench was overpowering, the lockers so thoughtlessly provided for the Immigrants use were full of dirt, mouldy bread, and suet full of maggots, beneath the bottom boards of nearly every berth upon the lower deck were discovered soup and bouille cans and other receptacles full of putrid ordure, and porter bottles etc, filled with stale urine, while maggots were seen crawling underneath the berths, and this state of things must have been prevalent for a long time as the 2nd Mate describes the ship to have been in the same state when he supervised the cleaning of her by the Captain's order five weeks previously"
How long this news took to get back to Cumberland is not known, but questions were asked in parliament over the ship’s design, so it would probably have been in the local papers as most of the emigrants were from nearby in Scotland.
By 1861 Sarah, her first child with Alexander, was already widowed and had come back to live with her mother, but the other children prospered. Ann, in particular, was taking her place in the middle classes and it would have given Sarah enormous pleasure - had she known - that Ann’s son, who was seven when Sarah died in 1864, would go on to become mayor of Carlisle, the city where Sarah had lived all her life in rather different circumstances to that in which her grandson would live.
The clipper Ticeronderoga
NOTES
1. I cannot be sure how many children Sarah had, and who the fathers were. In particular, Nanny (Ann)'s fathemay not have been Lancelot Bird. There are three bastardy documents connected with Sarah's children which name the fathers: Lancelot Bird in 1818; William Hetherington in 1821; and Alexander Kirk in 1827. There is no document connected to Nanny's baptism. There is no baptism associated with 1818 but, in 1839, when a Mary Mingens married, she named Lancelot Bird as her father. Lancelot died in 1825.
2. Lanty/Lancelot Minges was baptised in 1829, the son of Sarah Mingins, singlewoman. Sarah was married by then, so was no longer a 'single woman'. However, the name is something of a co-incidence and it seems possible to me that Lanty was born c1825 (when Sarah was single) and not baptised until 1829. In the 1841 census he gives hi age as 15-19, so he seems likely to have been born before 1829.
3. The information about Lancelor being shipwrecked comes from two articles written by Ken Pratt in Vol 38 Nos 2 & 3 of The War Correspondent, the journal of the Crimean War Research Society
4. Although described as Mrs Elizabeth Ellen COE in the 1861 and living with her supposed in-laws, I have found no evidence of her remarrying. In the 1891 census an Elizabeth MINNS, 60, widow, b Devon is living in Essex with her widowed 'daughter' Laura BESANT, 31 and her 'son' Ralph BESANT, 30. The relationships make no sense but suggest that Elizabeth may never have re-married