This unassuming grave is linked to the rather grander Scholfield family graves, and is the resting place of a man who must have felt a lot of pressure to achieve things in his life…and almost got there. Almost.
Thomas Nash was born in 1841, and would be the only surviving son of Thomas and Elizabeth (Scholfield) Nash. Orphaned at the age of twelve, he grew up under the care of his aunt Susan, with uncle Samuel providing for the family through his work as a doctor and surgeon in the town. It’s only natural that Thomas wanted to follow in those footsteps. His father had been a successful cattle dealer, sure, but who wouldn’t want the little extra prestige? And so by 1861 Thomas was apprenticing with Samuel from their home at Patmos Cottages.
Meanwhile, Esther Ormerod had been born two years earlier, and lived at Blind Lane with her parents John and Grace and her siblings. John and Thomas Nash Sr. might have known each other professionally, with John’s occupation being “farmer” in 1851. By 1861 he had become a grocer but the census is unclear as to whether Esther and her sisters had anything to do with the business. Their occupations are blank, which is a surprise, as you’d expect the then-23 year old Esther to be doing something. As it was, two years later she did – she married Thomas. At their wedding two of the witnesses were Thomas’s sister Anna and her soon-to-be-husband Edmund Wrigley, and the other two were Esther’s siblings. John Ormerod was described as a “yeoman”, which lends a nice old-timey touch to things.
Thomas describes himself on the marriage certificate as a medical student, and that was true – he was still training under Samuel Scholfield and presumably also elsewhere. But 1871 rolls round, and on the census, he’s still a medical student. What was going on? That’s a good question.
Because by 1867 he wasn’t training under Samuel anymore, or working for him. These notices seem fairly benign, with businessmen posting them any time there’d been a severance between employer and employee regardless of the tone of it. Thomas was proud of his Scholfield roots, even naming his daughter who was born as late as 1874 “Sarah Anna Scholfield Nash”…but by 1875 he was definitely working and/or training under Dr. Thorp instead. Mention of him appears in the papers here and there as having attended someone who had been unwell and then passing the case to another doctor if things were more serious. The 1881 Census shows the Nashes living at Victoria Terrace and Thomas as a medical student.
By 1885 Thomas seems to have given up somewhat, in more ways than one. A few times he appears in the papers as either a defaulting ratepayer or as owing money to a businessman, for example for groceries received and not paid for. A man died at the Summit Inn and he was the person initially called for to view the body, and the newspaper describes him as an “untrained doctor”. You can imagine what this must have felt like. 20+ years in training and still not quite there.
Thomas died in 1886 after having a stroke. He was described as having been in poor health for some time although his death was apparently unexpected. He was only 44 years old. Esther was left with the children, although fortunately for her none of them were so young to make her life more difficult than it was already about to be. Sarah Anna and son Samuel came to the rescue. Sarah Anna, a pupil teacher, managed to secure the rental of the school house at Centre Vale, and Samuel’s wage as a merchant’s clerk helped. Plus Thomas, for all the defaulting he was doing on debts owed, was actually pretty well off when he died, leaving an estate of around £517! It just goes to show. Even if he never made it to full doctor, he was still managing to find work and make it pay.
Esther eventually decided to retire to Blackpool after 1891, but that was short lived as she died there in 1895. The small stone doesn’t make much sense does it – they could afford more and we would have expected a slightly taller, if not grander, monument to the couple. As things stand if the grass gets high you’ll trip right over it. Still, it represents two lives, and a story that was (hopefully) interesting to read.