Whatever the facts of Joseph’s whereabouts, Mary Ann and her daughter were left to manage as best they could, a situation that was made a little easier when Elizabeth became old enough to go to school.
And fortunately for her, times were changing. Unlike her mother, Elizabeth would not grow up illiterate. In earlier Victorian days illiteracy was widespread. Education was neither compulsory nor always free, the only free schooling being that offered by what were known as the ‘ragged’ schools, introduced in the late eighteenth century to provide free education to the children of the poor. These institutions, however, were few and far between until later in the nineteenth century. Further, to make matters worse, with no reliable contraception and couples tending to have large numbers of children, it became the custom to educate only the sons. After all, it was reasoned, it was they who would eventually have to be the breadwinners, so what was the point in spending hard-earned money in teaching a girl to write and do arithmetic when she was unlikely ever to have need of such learning? In the general order of things, the working life of a girl from the lower classes would be spent in domestic service, or on a farm or in a factory – after which, with luck, she would marry and raise a family. In any such situation book-learning would have no place in her life. This phenomenon of female children being denied education is demonstrated in the marriage record of Elizabeth’s parents. Mary Ann, born in 1826, was typical of the many illiterate working class girls of her time. On her marriage she ‘signed’ the register with a cross, while her groom, Joseph, penned his name. It is similarly the case with the witnesses to the marriage. They are named as John Hamilton and his wife Ann, and while John signs his name in the register, Ann can only make her mark with a cross.
It would be different for Elizabeth. With the proliferation of the free schools more and more children were being given some kind of education. With Mary Ann working long hours at the local cotton mill, Elizabeth could not be cared for at home during the day, so the answer was to send her to school – which would not only ensure that she would get an education of sorts, but also see her in safe hands while her mother was out earning a living. No records exist of Elizabeth’s scholarly progress but there can be no doubt that her education, such as it was, suited her well. Clever and ambitious as she was, she made full use of her tuition, and in so doing sowed the seeds of the dissatisfaction that would colour the rest of her days – and eventually see her go on trial for her life.
Unlike today’s more protracted terms of education, Elizabeth’s schooling was unlikely to have taken her beyond the age of twelve, at which time she was sent out to earn her keep, working alongside her mother at the mill.
So many people at the time worked in the cotton industry. The Industrial Revolution had seen mills springing up all over the north of England, and the lure of steady employment became a magnet to men and women all over Great Britain and Ireland who were eager to make a better living. But while tall tales circulated of men in the northern towns walking around with £5 notes stuck in their hat bands, the reality was very different; the reality was a life of long hours of hard graft for low pay.
And Elizabeth was soon to discover the hardships at first hand, and to discover also that labouring day in, day out as a cotton-weaver was not the life for her. With no alternative, however, she had to take what was available, and even then, mill work was not always easy to come by. Over the latter part of the 1860s mother and daughter would move around Manchester finding employment where they could, frequently changing their living quarters, renting rooms at a succession of addresses in the city’s various sub-districts.
The 1871 census finds them living in Werneth, an area of Oldham. Elizabeth was seventeen now, and developing into a handsome young woman. Known to all as ‘Lizzie’, she was petite in build – fully grown she would be only four feet nine-and-a-half inches tall – and had the added charm of the most attractive chestnut hair. Known to be reserved in her disposition, and with an inclination for dressing ‘tastefully, but not gaudily’, she was also said to be a hard-working young woman.
For all the positive comments about her deportment and work ethic, however, she also attracted many negative observations – which comments would later come thick and fast when her name was making headlines throughout the kingdom. And there would be no shortage of individuals ready to air their memories of her. Many of the negative comments came from her erstwhile colleagues at the mills. Declining to mix, she was never a popular girl, one former workmate typically remarking that in her relations with her co-workers she was most reserved, and as a rule kept aloof from them.
One positive thing that all agreed on, however, was her superior intelligence. There is no doubt that she had a fine brain, and perhaps in a later age she might have amounted to something dynamic in the most positive way. And the fact that she was well aware of her mental abilities inevitably contributed to her discontent. Never happy with her lot, she made no attempt to hide her dissatisfaction with the humdrum quality of her life. In her work in the mills her days were spent in the same wearisome routine, and in the full knowledge that, being female, she had no chance of advancement other than in the most modest terms. And while those around her expected nothing more than their lot, she at every turn showed a desire and determination to escape her situation. And when that ambition was not accomplished she used her imagination to invent for herself a persona that would raise her above her peers, and separate her from the common herd. In her striving for a better life she sometimes comes over as a kind of northern English, angry Madame Bovary – deeply dissatisfied with the unattractive reality of her existence, and, in seeking some kind of social elevation, resorting to lies, romance and illusions.
That she intended to escape her situation there is no doubt, and it would not be long before she was attempting to climb those first precarious steps on the steep social ladder, steps that would lead to scandal and, eventually, death.
3
Love and Marriage
While the young Elizabeth was making the best of things at the cotton mill, Mrs Welch too was hoping for an improvement in her situation. Since her husband’s departure she had lived the life of a single mother. However, some fifteen years on it looked as if there might be a welcome change in store.
Mary Ann Welch, who was regarded as a hard-working and respectable woman, wanted, like most women of her time, to be settled in a secure, domestic relationship, and, hopefully, to leave the matter of the bread-winning to a husband. And there appeared to be a chance of this when, in 1869, while she and her daughter were working at the Springhill mill in Royton, she met Manchester-born William Finley, who had come to work beside them as a cotton-weaver.
Whatever Mary Ann’s hopes, Finley doesn’t appear to have been the best possible catch for a secure and happy married life. In his late thirties, he was referred to by some at the mill as ‘the tramp weaver’, which soubriquet gives some hint as to his character. He was a rather happy-go-lucky, if not shiftless, rover – notwithstanding one with charm – and one who was somewhat too fond of propping up the bar at the local tavern. Whatever his failings might have been, however, Mary Ann took to him. He was, though, she soon discovered, a man with something of a past. He had previously married, in 1853, and had fathered five children. But he had not proved a good provider, and in 1866, homeless and jobless, he had taken his whole family as paupers into the Manchester Union Workhouse. And it was there, in the following October, that his thirty-six-year-old wife Margaret died of tuberculosis.
With his children motherless and totally dependent, Finley should have remained with them, to work and support them, but he chose not to, and soon after his wife’s death he gathered his things together and quit the place, leaving his children behind.
Five years later, with his children no longer playing any part in his life, he was starting a new life with Mary Ann, and on 22 July 1871 the two were married. On their marriage certificate the bride’s ‘condition’ is given as ‘widow’. They each gi
ve their age as forty – Mary Ann having knocked off five years. The two witnesses were Smith Duckworth and Mary Ann Duckworth. The certificate shows that all four – bride, groom and the two witnesses – were illiterate, all ‘signing’ the marriage register with their ‘mark’ – in each case a cross.
Was this a genuine marriage?
Although for years it had suited Mary Ann to present herself as a widow, she had no evidence or knowledge to support such a claim. And now she came out with a totally new account of how she had become widowed. According to reports, she said that the story of her husband dying in the Crimea had been invented out of shame over her abandonment – when the ‘true story’ was very different. This story, it appears, was the one she told to William Finley. Years later, Finley would be interviewed by journalists from two or three Oldham newspapers. Asked by the Chronicle’s man what he knew of Mrs Finley’s first husband, Finley replied, ‘I can’t answer that. She always told me that he went to America, and left her with two children, twins, a boy and a girl. The boy died and the girl was Elizabeth. He never wrote afterwards, and whether he was dead or living I never knew.’
So Finley’s words show that he himself didn’t know whether or not his ‘bride’ was indeed a widow, and, therefore, that he might knowingly and happily have entered into a bigamous marriage.
Mary Ann’s account, only slightly different from Finley’s, was that following Joseph’s departure she received a letter from him saying that he had gone to live in the USA. Later he wrote again, she said, sending money, and saying that he had enlisted to fight in the American Civil War. After this there was no further word from him.
This story of his having vanished somewhere in America would not do, of course, not when she was anxious to be seen to be free to tie the knot with Finley. After all, Joseph would be only in his mid-forties and could very well be alive and thriving somewhere. So, it was said, keen to make plans for her wedding, she made inquiries of the ‘American War Authorities’, and as a result was informed that following her husband’s discharge from the army he had retired to Louisiana, where he had died.
There are many questions raised by such a scenario, and they can only lead to the conclusion that the whole story was just another invention. How, one might ask, did Joseph, in 1857, send his wife money from the USA? US monetary notes were certainly in use at the time, but is it believable for one moment that he would have sent Mary Ann a wad of dollar bills in an envelope? Furthermore, why would he do it – send her money? In walking out on her he had made it abundantly clear that he had finished with her. Also, with regard to Mary Ann’s seeking information on his movements abroad – and his very convenient death – how would she have known which body to write to in her quest? Even with today’s internet and its all-powerful search engines one would find it a most daunting – if not near-impossible – challenge. Further, any exchange of correspondence back in 1871, even without the time taken for the ‘American War Authorities’ researches, would have taken several months. And as for the ‘official information’ on Joseph’s demise – nothing more specific than that he died between 1865 and 1871, somewhere in the vast state of Louisiana – it is worthless. If indeed the authorities had been able to discover details of his history, they would surely, at the very least, have given his widow the time and place of his death.
So what indeed did become of the errant Joseph Welch? Unfortunately it has not, at this time of writing, been possible to discover – in spite of extensive searches. It would appear that he remained with Mary Ann for only three years before packing his bags. And one has to wonder, too, at the reason for his going. Though perhaps the answer is not so difficult to fathom. Unhappy in his marriage, with a wife and children to support on a very small income, along with the constant necessity to be on the move in the pursuit of work, did he one day, following the death of baby John, decide that he had had enough?
And did he then leave the country? In those times of a growing British Empire, with the world opening up to enterprising young men, many were getting their one-way tickets to foreign lands. Was Joseph among them, and does he now lie buried in some foreign field? Possibly – but it is more than likely that he remained in England and merely moved to another part of the country or even of the town. Perhaps one day in his work at the mill he had met someone else, and determined to start a new life and marry again. Or perhaps he was already married when he met Mary Ann, and simply decided to return to his true wife.
It must be acknowledged that this is a strong possibility. Bigamous marriage was no rarity in earlier times. With divorce more or less out of the question for the lower classes, for someone with a wish to remarry it was just about the only answer. For a man to up sticks and leave his wife for a new life can’t have been so difficult an operation. In an age before telephones and the internet, National Insurance numbers, Council Tax records and electoral rolls, and any number of other means that are available today, there was no procedure by which a wife could trace a straying husband if he was determined not to be found.
Whatever the facts surrounding Joseph’s departure, Mary Ann, left in the lurch and eager to remarry, invented his emigration to the USA. And who on earth could have proved it false? Only perhaps Joseph, and he was keeping a low profile.
It is not difficult to understand Mary Ann’s actions – and even to sympathize. A middle-aged woman abandoned by her husband had no option but to support herself, and if that proved impossible it meant going into the workhouse. It can hardly be wondered at, then, that if the chance of love and security came to her she should want to reach out and take it. After all, it could make no difference to anyone else. Joseph Welch was most unlikely to come back into her life, so perhaps the simple answer for her was to stick to her story of being a widow, and in the eyes of all be eligible to remarry.
Regardless of Joseph Welch’s whereabouts, it would appear that the newly married Finleys were in no fear of his coming back to upset their applecart, and they must have started their married lives with great hope. So it was that, along with Elizabeth, they set up home in rooms in Drury Lane, Hollinwood. Unfortunately, what dreams of happiness they nursed were not to last. Within weeks William Finley was gone from the scene, dragged away by officers of the constabulary.
Had he and Mary Ann been on their own they might have made something of a go of it, but there was conflict. He was later to say of Mary Ann that he ‘couldn’t do with her relatives’, citing one instance where one of her sisters came for a visit and did not address a single word to him in the course of five hours. But the real thorn in his side was – and not surprisingly – Elizabeth.
It was, of course, almost inevitable that Finley and his stepdaughter would not get on. There was she, a fastidious, socially ambitious young woman who kept herself aloof from the common crowd, and there was he, a beer-drinking, shiftless, illiterate, roving mill-worker – a man who would not even take responsibility for his own children. Disapproving of him from the start, Elizabeth soon came to dislike him with a passion, making no effort at any kind of rapprochement, but openly showing that she despised him. It suited her too to cause friction between him and her mother, and as he worked alongside the two of them at the mill he found no respite from the ever-present tension and disagreeable ambience. Consequently he sought comfort through beer and friends in the local public house of an evening, which resulting expenditure further blackened his relationship with his wife and stepdaughter, leading to furious rows between them.
In his interview with the man from the Chronicle, Finley would speak of some of the difficulties he encountered right from the first days of his marriage. Notwithstanding that Elizabeth was, in his words, ‘a hard-working lass, and the cleanest girl’ he had ever seen, she was also, he said, ‘a regular beggar’. He told the reporter: ‘She wouldn’t speak to me when she came in, and you know it’s very fretting for a man to sit there a whole day, and for a young woman that I never did harm to not to speak to him…And the very first day I was marrie
d she didn’t do right. When we were having a bit of a jollification after the wedding a friend of mine says to Lizzie, “This is your father now.” And she tossed her head in disdain, and says, “I’ll never call you father, and I’ll never try.”’ Continuing his melancholy account of the big day, he said, ‘That night she went to Manchester to see a relative, and as it got late, and she didn’t come back I thought she was going to stay all night, but at twelve o’clock she knocked us up, and that was on my wedding night too.’
There was worse to come. One Saturday morning, five weeks into their marriage, Finley was setting off to work when Mary Ann told him bluntly that when his work was finished he was to come straight home with his wages. ‘Mary Ann,’ he said, ‘all you thinks about is money,’ to which she replied, ‘Yes, that’s all I do think about.’
There would be more sharp words later. Disobeying instructions, after work that evening he went drinking and became the worse for it, and not surprisingly his wife and stepdaughter were waiting for him when he got in. There was an almighty scene between the three of them, during which Finley managed to do some damage to the house, or as he put it, ‘… there was some bother, and I broke some windows’.
If he thought that this would be the end of the matter, however, he was soon to be proved mistaken, and in the most shocking and dramatic manner.
As noted, Mary Ann and Elizabeth were well aware of certain parts of his history, not least how after the death of his wife he had abandoned his children to the care of the workhouse, and left the workhouse guardians no means of reaching him. This knowledge was all that Elizabeth needed. Determined to get him out of their lives, she did the most remarkable thing. On the Monday morning following the row she didn’t go immediately to her work at the mill, but set off for the Manchester workhouse where Finley’s children had been abandoned. There she informed the Board of Guardians of her stepfather’s whereabouts. As a result, members of the constabulary promptly came to Drury Lane and arrested him for the desertion of his children. He was then hauled up before the magistrate in the police court and sentenced to three months in the squalid environs of Manchester’s Belle Vue Gaol.
There Must Be Evil Page 2
