Nat Gould

Mary Gould 1816-1877

Mary Gould was born at Longnor in Staffordshire in 1816, the daughter of Richard Gould 1780-1843 and his wife Alice.

Crowdecote

In 1839 she was married to Samuel Belfield, born in 1805 at Hartington in Derbyshire, the son of Joseph and Ann Belfield. He was baptised at Hartington on 25 August 1805.

Samuel Belfield was farming at Crowdecote in Hartington parish until between 1844 and 1846 when the family moved to Dinting Vale near Glossop in Derbyshire, where Samuel Belfield was employed as a railway goods porter.

They had the following children:

Thomas Belfield. He was born in 1839 at Crowdecote. In 1851 he was working as an errand boy at Dinting Vale where the family were then living.

Nancy Belfield. She was born, presumably at Crowdecote, in either January 1841 or December 1840. She was six months old when the Census was taken on 6 June 1841.

Mary Ann Belfield. She was born in 1844 in Hartington, presumably at Crowdecote. She was baptised at Hartington on 12 May 1844.
When the 1851 Census was taken, she was aged eight years and staying with her grandmother Alice Gould at Biggin Hall in Derbyshire.

Thompson Belfield. He was born in 1846 at Dinting Vale, Glossop.

Thomasin Belfield. She was born in 1847 at Dinting Vale, and baptised at Hartington on 13 September 1847.

Alice Belfield. She was born in 1849 at Dinting Vale, and baptised at Hartington on 12 September 1849.

John Belfield. He was born in 1853 at Dinting Vale, and baptised at Hartington on 14 September 1853.


Their father Samuel Belfield died in 1855 at Glossop.

His widow Mary Belfield died in 1877 at Glossop.

The painting is by Joshua Shaw and shows Dinting Vale just as industrial development was beginning with the coming of the Manchester, Sheffield & Lincolnshire Railway in 1844. This railway attracted workers from the countryside in the rural depression of the 1840s, and Samuel Belfield found work there as a railway goods porter. The smoking chimney of one of the earliest factories in Dinting Vale can just be seen in the far distance. The lake was actually a reservoir for a calico print works. For the Belfield family the contrast with the Dove valley would have been stark indeed. Sadly Samuel did not live long to enjoy any new-found prosperity.

The railway crossed Dinting Vale by a spectacular viaduct providing a vital link in the line which became the Great Central Railway in 1897. It merged with others to form the London & North Eastern Railway in 1923 and became part of British Railways in 1948.
It was a main express route between London and Manchester until it was closed in the 1960s. The viaduct survives, although now serving only the Manchester to Hadfield and Glossop branch lines.

Joshua Shaw was born in the Lincolnshire village of Billingborough around 1776. He set up in business in Manchester, but had moved to London by 1802, and to Bath by 1805. Later he returned to London. Joshua Shaw exhibited views of Derbyshire at the Royal Academy in London from 1802 to 1810, and at the British Institution from 1811 to 1814. In 1817 he emigrated to America, where he remained until his death in 1860.