Afflictions sore long time I bore,
Physicians were in vain,
Till God above displayed his love,
And eased me of my pain.
So reads Sarah Law’s epitaph, and for good reason.
Sarah’s origins are unknown thanks to the years in which she got married and the common name of her future husband. She was born around 1811 as Sally Greenwood of Todmorden, or Sally Crabtree of Rochdale, or Sarah Collins of Cliviger. Depending on which one of these three women she was, she married warehouse labourer Thomas Law of Todmorden in 1833 in Todmorden, or 1835 in Rochdale, or 1833 in Heptonstall. She’s Sarah on her gravestone but Sally on every other record, including her death certificate, so it’s hard to be sure.
Thomas and Sarah had no children and seem to have made their home at Pexwood for their entire married life. Despite Thomas’s working class, unskilled occupation and their lack of children, Sarah seems to have never worked, which would have put a lot of pressure on Thomas. Her health might have been poor for most of her life. Towards the end though it got worse. Poor Sarah had a disease that still claims too many lives even today: breast cancer. While Thomas worked their neighbour from a few doors down, Mary (Smith) Fielden, helped nurse Sarah. She died in August 1859 at the age of 48, with Mary at her side. Her stone here is a simple design but with beautiful script and would have cost Thomas a reasonable amount of money, especially with the epitaph included. Gravestones are always trying to tell us something; what does this one tell us?
Faithful friend Mary Fielden and her husband Joseph and some of their children are buried in the private part of the graveyard at W4.5.
Thomas waited two years before remarrying, this time to someone whose maiden name we do know. Mary Whitehead was a few years younger than them both, having been born in 1814. She was the eldest daughter of William and Hannah Whitehead of Gorpley, and after William’s death in the late 1830s she took on the main role supporting her mother and her younger siblings. Hannah died in 1848 and Mary’s whereabouts in 1851 are unknown but she was in Thomas’s orbit by 1861 and the two were married in January of that year at the register office. After all that speculation about Sarah’s ability to work, maybe Thomas was just chivalrous; on that year’s census Mary wasn’t working either! She wasn’t young, mind, but neither was Thomas.
Thomas died in March 1870 and was buried here with his suffering first wife, and Mary was left a not-wealthy widow. His estate amounted to less than £50 and Mary didn’t even manage to get hold of it until probate was concluded in 1874. She had first found lodgings with Crossley Dewhirst of Wellington Road, a draper, and then later at York Place with her sister Sarah and her husband, malster and Local Board member Barker Mitchell. By 1881 the three had moved to Byrom Street. They seemed to get along well and after Barker retired they all continued to live together with the help of a live-in domestic servant, which probably helped Sarah and Mary a great deal as Barker’s health was very poor in his final years. He died in 1892 and was buried at Cloughfoot with Sarah who had died the year before. Mary was adrift once more but managed to find lodgings with an (apparently unrelated) William Whitehead, a retired mechanic who lived down on Rochdale Road near Hollins Mill. She stayed with him until her death in 1896 when she was buried here with her husband and his first wife.