Nat Gould

Mary Edge 1820-1915

Mary Edge was born in 1820 at Noon Sun Farm on the moorlands between Longnor and Leek in Staffordshire.

In 1843 she was married to William Bagshaw 1912-1877 at Hartington in Derbyshire. He was born at Crowdecote in Hartington parish.

They had the following children (1):

Jane Ann Bagshaw. She was born in 1844.

Hannah Bagshaw. She was born in 1844.

Thomas Bagshaw. He was born in 1851.

In 1851 they were living in Hindlow, between Earl Sterndale and Buxton in Derbyshire, where William Bagshaw worked in the stone quarry. By 1871 they had moved to Earl Sterndale, where William Bagshaw was then an agricultural labourer. He died in 1877 aged 77 years, and was buried at Earl Sterndale on 30 November 1877.

The 1871 Census Return includes a visitor named Sarah Edge, aged 61 years, unmarried and born at Noon Sun Farm (2).

In 1881 widowed Mary Bagshaw was living at Earl Sterndale with her married daughter Jane Ann Wood (born at Longnor in 1844) and unmarried daughter Hannah Bagshaw (born at Crowdecote in 1846. Also living with them was her grandson Ernest Bagshaw 1877-1960.

In 1891 her grandson was still living with her, then aged fourteen and working as a general labourer. They were then living at Hindlow Bar. By 1901 her grandson had married and Mary Bagshaw was living separately in Hindlow, the only other member of the household being Eliza Bagshaw (3).

On 11 April 1904 her grandson Ernest Bagshaw, by then widowed, married Martha Askey 1876-1911 at Alstonefield in Staffordshire, her native village. They had a daughter Hannah Bagshaw born on 18 April 1910, and lived at 2 Grin Row, Ladmanlow near Burbage. His grandmother went to live with them there in her old age.

Mary Bagshaw died in 1905 aged 86 years, and was buried from that address on 21 March 1905 at Hartington in Derbyshire.

(1) They may also have had a son William Bagshaw, father of Ernest Bagshaw 1877-1960, but this is uncertain. The father of Ernest Bagshaw is named as William Bagshaw on the certificate of his 1904 marriage to Martha Askey 1876-1911, but that certificate is rather carelessly written out by the officiating minister. Perhaps Ernest Bagshaw gave his father's name as William and the minister assumed that the surname was Bagshaw.
There is much uncertainty over the origin of Ernest Bagshaw, recorded in the Census Returns his having been born in Manchester in 1877, but no entry of any such birth in that place and approximate date has been found. He was however definitely the grandson of Mary Bagshaw nee Edge, and may perhaps have been the son of one of her daughters. That would explain why Ernest Bagshaw was brought up by his grandmother.
(2) As this unmarried Sarah was surnamed Edge and born at the very isolated Noon Sun Farm on the moorlands between Longnor and Leek in Staffordshire, she was almost certainly the sister of Mary Bagshaw nee Edge, who was born on the same farm.
(3) She was unmarried, aged 64, and born in 1837 at Cadley in Staffordshire. That is presumably Cadley Hill near Burton-on-Trent, Eliza Bagshaw, although described in the Census Return as a boarder, may have been a relative.