Some of the Women in My (Very Early) Life

Inevitably, documenting the lives of women in a family history project can often provide a challenge, especially prior to the 20^th century. In my forty-odd years of genealogical research, I have come across many women whose tales either have already been told or should be. This post is simply a collection of vignettes of some of these, whether genetically related or not. Fuller accounts of some of them can also be found in my other genealogical reports.

Lady Jane Fisher (née Lane; circa 1626 –1689)

Jane Lane played a heroic role in the escape of Charles II after the Battle of Worcester in 1651. Both were exiled in France until the Restoration after which Jane was granted £1,000 a year for life. Jane was married to Sir Clement Fisher of Great Packington, Warwickshire in 1663 by the Archbishop of Canterbury. In later life she lived rather extravagantly and became deeply in debt. When she died, her estate was valued at only £10.  Sir Clement was a cousin of Sir Edward Fisher of Mickleton who a direct ancestor of the Anglo-Irish Quaker branch of my maternal grandmother’s family.

Anne Spencer, Countess of Sunderland (born Lady Anne Churchill; 1683–1716)

 With our Hudson family’s recurring middle name of Spencer and origins in Wolfhampcote, Warwickshire, speculation about a family connection to the Spencer-Churchill family was inevitable. Lady Anne Churchill was the second daughter of John and Sarah Churchill, Duke & Duchess of Marlborough. In 1700, Anne married, Charles Spencer, 3rd Earl of Sunderland whose family was originally from Wormleighton, also in Warwickshire. Wolfhampcote and Wormleighton are only about ten miles apart and there is at least one intriguing connection with the Althorp family. The transcript of the earlier parish registers for Wolfhampcote make three references to the sponsorship of vicars in 1596, 1603 and 1606 by Thomas Spencer Esquire, 2nd son of Sir John Spencer of Althorp. So maybe Lady Di and I truly are cousins?

Elizabeth (Betsy) Early (née Waine; 1782 – 1864)

 One of my father’s Oxfordshire ancestral families are the Waines, blanket weavers of Witney.  There were several Waine marriages into another of the leading weaving family, the Earlys, the most significant of these unions being that between Elizabeth Waine and John Early in 1808.  Betsy Waine was a partner of her husband John Early in the complete sense of the word. From their letters that survive, it is clear that she actively participated in the running of the business in addition to being a wife and a mother to their nine children. Several paintings of John and Elizabeth survive and are illustrated in “The Blanket Makers” by Plummer and Early.

Jane Fisher (née Moor; 1789 – 1877)

Jane Moor whose father was from a Yorkshire Quaker family, married Abraham Fisher of Youghal. She was very active in all Quaker social causes and “supported the Temperance campaign when it was neither popular nor very safe to do in Ireland”.

Jane vigourously participated in the running of the Women’s’ Meeting in Youghal and frequently attended the Quarterly Meetings in Cork. She was a zealous supporter of the West Indian anti-slavery movement, boycotting sugar that was produced by slave labour.

Sarah Goble (1820 – 1837)

Monday 30th October 1837 was a sad day for the Goble family. For it was then that Sarah Goble was buried at St Egbert’s parish church in Bicester at the tragically young age of seventeen.  The silver lining was the baptism of her infant son, William who miraculously survived her. This was a good thing as he was my father’s grandfather. The fact that the time of birth was recorded on William’s birth certificate is an indication that this was probably a multiple birth.  His twin, if indeed he/she existed, was presumably stillborn.  The “inflammation” that Sarah died from was most likely serious hemorrhaging or massive infection after childbirth. Multiple births dramatically increased the risk not only to the mother but also to the children.

Anna Haslam (née Fisher; 1829–1922)

Anna Maria Fisher was an aunt of my maternal great-grandfather.  She was a committed advocate of women’s rights in Ireland and was also very involved both in famine relief and in the international peace movement.  Anna was able to offer valuable help to Marie Stopes with her research on the history of birth control but was not given much credit in Stope’s subsequent books on the subject. In later years, however, Stopes did acknowledge Anna’s important role. In her 2009 essay on Anna Maria Haslam, Mary Cullen writes:  “Anna Haslam's contribution to the development of Irish feminist activism was enormous, as was that of the suffrage association she founded. She combined strong and effective leadership with an ability to win the respect and admiration of many who disagreed with her on various issues”.

Martha Clapham (née Handley; 1830 – 1921)

 Martha Clapham came from sound Yorkshire farming stock. Her obituaries said that she had been of great interest to students of the Yorkshire dialect, as she “spoke it pure and simple”.  Apparently Martha was also able to play a good many tunes on the mouth organ!  When she died in 1921 she was the oldest inhabitant of North Rigton (near Harrogate). 

Marie Fisher (née Clapham; 1863 – 1950)

Marie Fisher, my great-grandmother was radical for her time and was an active member of the women's suffragette movement.  She was a frequent speaker at the Women's Social and Political Union. According to her obituaries; she was stoned by a hostile crowd during a meeting in Leeds while supporting the most prominent member of the movement, Emmeline Pankhurst.  As a secularist and freethinker, Marie attended the Rome International Freethought Congress of 1904 as a delegate of the British Secular League. She was elected as the first woman president of the Leeds Philatelic Society in 1923 and in 1926 she sat on the committee of the prestigious Yorkshire Naturalists’ Society.

In spite of her espoused liberal views, Marie does not appear to have been a particularly tolerant woman, castigating most members of her family at various times.  She had a high intellect and great strength of character but these qualities were often used to further her own agenda, sometimes at a cost to others.

Annie Wilhelmina Hudson (née Goble; 1866 - 1954)

Annie Wilhelmina Goble became the wife of Robert Spencer Hudson in 1894. Thus when he was elected Mayor of Rugby in 1935, she assumed the role and responsibilities of Mayoress. Endless official functions, including the royal visit of Princess Mary, daughter of King George V, would have required her active participation and inevitably she was also expected to fill the role of mother to their six children.

Flora Jane Thompson (née Timms; 1876 – 1947)

William Wain Goble, my father’s maternal grandfather and Flora Jane Thompson, author of the Oxford trilogy, Lark Rise to Candleford have no shared ancestry but they do have several Waine cousins in common, several of whom were used as models for characters in her hugely successful books. Flora probably traveled to Bicester while working for Fringford Post Office and it was there that she visited with these Waine cousins. 

Lester Rowntree (born Gertrude Ellen Lester; 1879-1979)

Gertrude Ellen Lester was born in northern England to a Quaker family. In 1889, when Nellie was ten, her father decided to give up his grocery store and bought, sight unseen, a farm in Kansas in the United States. His farming venture failed and Mr. Lester and two of his children died of typhoid from contaminated well water. A Mrs. Charlotte Rowntree, my great-grandfather’s second wife, read of the family's plight in a Quaker newspaper, felt compassion for the family and offered them a home in her Kansas City house. It was here that Nellie first met Charlotte's son, Bernard Rowntree. They married in 1908 when she assumed the name Lester Rowntree. After their subsequent divorce, Lester achieved fame as a pioneering botanist in California, becoming a passionate advocate for the preservation of the state’s native flora.