47.58 – Samuel, Martha and Susan Scholfield

This story is mostly already told over on the Todmorden and Walsden website, where an entire page is devoted to the Scholfields of Todmorden. Scroll down a spell and you’ll come to Samuel and some of his story. We’ll tell the rest though, because Susan and Martha here are lost in the story there.

Samuel Scholfield, “Surgeon of Roomfield House”, was born in 1821, and baptised here at Christ Church the same year. He was an intelligent boy, and while his father William was an ironmonger he was aiming for something more academic. The 1841 Census shows him living with his parents and two older sisters Susan and Sarah, and younger sister Anne (or Anna), at North Street and employed as a surgeon’s apprentice. He finished his apprenticeship and went into practice soon after, setting up his practice on Water Street.

1851 came along and changes to the family. William and Mary, his parents, were both no more. Susan and another sister, Elizabeth, were living with him, along with Elizabeth’s three children. Elizabeth had married Thomas Nash, a cattle dealer and farmer, in 1833 (also at Christ Church) and for reasons unknown at the time of the 1851 Census was living apart from him. His whereabouts at this time are unknown, but we do know that he died in June 1853 as he’s handily buried at…Christ Church. Elizabeth also died in 1853, on New Year’s Day, and is buried at 39.27 along with Thomas and their two young sons who died in 1839 and 1840. The surviving children, Thomas, Anna and Betty, stayed with Samuel and Susan.

Samuel and Susan had a good relationship, Susan keeping house and looking after the Nash children, and Samuel working. The family moved along over to Patmos although the shop seems to have carried on at Water Street. Thomas Jr. was taken on as one of his apprentices and shop workers as the business grew, although this partnership ended in 1867.

Why did it end? Well, Thomas had moved on to become a medical student and was also balancing his own family, so likely had struck out on his own. But Samuel was also considering some changes to his life. Maybe they had already begun. In 1869, in Scarborough, Samuel got married at the relatively ripe old age of 48. When life expectancies were lower this was definitely on the later side of life. From the looks of things it was an elopement of sorts, and it wouldn’t be surprising if there was gossip, since his new wife was 20 years his junior!

Martha Scholfield began her life as Martha Gee. We know painfully little about her apart from the fact that she was born in Rishworth around 1836 or 1838 – the date varies. It could even be as late as 1841. We think 1841 is correct because of her given age much later on. In those early days though it may be that Martha lied about her age in order to gain work. We can find supposedly 13 year old Martha lodging with the Dyson family at New House in Soyland. They were weavers and she was a cotton piecer. Saying she was 13 rather than 10 would have allowed her to get work, which is fair enough…on the other hand, though, why lie and say she was older than she was later on? But we’re getting ahead of ourselves. Frustratingly we cannot find a birth or baptism record for a Martha Gee any time before 1841 anywhere around this area, or a Joseph Gee (her father’s name) who seems to fit the bill either. And we don’t think that the 1841 Martha Gee is our girl. So this will have to remain mysterious.

However she came to Samuel’s attention and affections, the pair married at the registry office in Scarborough in February 1869. By this time Samuel was living at Roomfield House in very cozy quarters, having made a good name for himself. He and Martha lived comfortably – and alone – apart from his groom. The pair had no children it seems, or if they did they were nowhere to be found nearby. When death came it came for both of them, with Samuel dying in February 1877 and Martha following in October. Martha didn’t have time to get her will in order and her estate, which will have included some of his, went to the Duchy of Lancaster. There’s an irony in all this, which is that Samuel’s parents William and Mary died within a year of each other, with Mary’s will not being sorted out fully, and a legal battle ensuing between William and most of his sisters against the eldest sister who had been granted sole probate by the court. You’d think he’d have remembered this and made sure that both he and Martha were sorted out…but then his death was something of a surprise to everyone.

But what about Susan in all of this? All the Scholfield sisters were fairly good at fending for themselves and their father’s ironmonger business had set them up in good stead. Two of the sisters had even continued to run the business from their shop front on North Street after William’s death. If you remember it was Susan who took in the Nash children after their mother’s death and that relationship persisted. In 1871 we find Susan in Shipton, North Yorkshire, living in a pub with her niece Anna Nash (now Anna Wrigley) whose husband Edmund was the publican of the Devonshire Arms. Mary Nash was also in residence. It must have been lovely – there were as many servants as there were family members – Susan could finally put her feet up!

But by 1881 Susan had left the Wrigleys and gone to be nearer her sister Anna Scholfield, one of the “Misses Scholfield” who had taken over the ironmonger business. After Martha’s death a number of properties in Todmorden, at Toad Carr, were sold in an auction and it’s possible that some of the proceeds of these went to Samuel’s sisters. We certainly don’t know if Martha had any siblings who could lay claim to any of the estate. Anna had moved to Hipperholme with her friend Sarah Daxson (who may have been a relation of her late brother in law Charles Daxon, who had married her sister Sarah) to live off the proceeds of her retirement, and Susan moved in next door on Langlea Terrace with her friend Emelia Wilson, also from Todmorden. Here the sisters and their friends lived side by side until Susan’s death in 1886. Interestingly both had occupations given as “from property houses” (ie. they were landladies) and both were also well off enough to employ a servant, or at least they were with the help of their friends.

It seems like an anticlimax to leave things there, but that’s where we must. Yes, there are four more people in this grave, John and Alice (Scholfield) Marshall and Albert Edward and Mary Ann (Marshall) Alletson. But their ancestor is James Scholfield, Samuel’s father William’s brother, and that story needs its own page.