Lucy Stevens (1852-1854) a Bridgwater workhouse child
Lucy was born in the workhouse to a single mother, so the odds of having a comfortable life were already against her.
The Horsford family
Hannah Horsford (1804-1863) was born in North Petherton and probably worked in the fields with her parents or as a housemaid. Both Hannah and her elder sister Charlotte (1799-1852) became single mothers before eventually marrying. Hannah had two sons, Joseph (1829) and Alexander (1832), who kept the Horsford surname all their lives, despite being raised as sons of Hannah and Edward Stevens. Hannah’s third child was Charlotte, who was born in Bridgwater on 8 August 1833, but baptised in St Pancras, London.
The Stevens Family
Edward Stevens (c1811-1872) and Hannah probably met in Bridgwater in 1832, if not before. Edward was born in Charlinch, Somerset. No-one knows if Hannah’s two boys were Edward’s sons, but Charlotte was probably his daughter, as she was baptised Charlotte Horsford Stevens. According to the parish register, a total of thirty babies were baptised at St Pancras on Sunday, 7 September 1834, so there was no detailed checking of the parents’ circumstances. Edward was recorded as a servant of Wellesley Street, which was near the present day location of Euston Station. The minister believed that Edward and Hannah were married as there was no mention of “base child” or similar.
Edward and Hannah were probably living together for two or three years before finally marrying in December 1835 at the parish church at Wembdon, where Hannah’s sister now lived. Both made crosses on the marriage register instead of signing their names, so likely neither went to school.
Edward and Hannah settled down to married life in Bridgwater and quickly had five more children: Eliza, Mary Ann, Edwin, Charles and John. Edward was a journeyman shoemaker and even with hard work, would have earned barely enough to support a big family. In 1841 they lived in Moat Lane. Ten years later the older children were young adults and both Joseph and Alexander were shoemakers working elsewhere. Edward and Hannah had buried Charles in 1847 but their other five children were at home with them in Friarn Street. There was also a local tailor, Thomas Langdon, 45, lodging in the same household.
Lucy
Charlotte became pregnant around Christmas 1851 and the lodger would come under suspicion, but there is no record of the father. Lucy Stevens was born on 10 September 1852 in the workhouse, which suggests that Edward and Hannah were no longer supporting Charlotte at that time. Many parents would tell an unmarried, pregnant daughter to leave home, but Hannah had been a single mother too.
Charlotte struggled to survive on her own with Lucy. Even if she found someone to care for Lucy, most households would not employ a single mother as a servant. She could take in laundry but it paid only a pittance. On 20 June 1854 Charlotte was imprisoned in Wilton Gaol in Taunton. The term and the offence were not stated, but the most common offences were larceny, assault, drunkenness, vagrancy and prostitution. Charlotte, 21, was described as a labourer, height 4 ft 11 ½ ins, hazel eyes and brown hair. She had a cut or scar near her left eye and a mole above her right eye.
Meanwhile, Lucy, 21 months, went to the Bridgwater workhouse when her mother went to prison. It is possible that one of the family took her home for a while, but she was in the workhouse when there was an outbreak of whooping cough in November.
Lucy died in the workhouse on 1 December 1854 aged two years, of whooping cough. It was a common infectious disease of childhood with a cycle of outbreaks or minor epidemics every three to five years. Infections spread very quickly in the workhouse because conditions were generally crowded and unhealthy with not enough good food. Only three children died in the workhouse of whooping cough that winter, but many others would have been coughing.
Lucy was buried as a pauper in the Wembdon Road Cemetery.
Charlotte
Charlotte did a further prison term in October 1856 for prostitution and then left Bridgwater. In 1861 she was a washerwoman in lodgings in Northampton. In the meantime Edward and Hannah and their sons Joseph and John had also moved north where there was more work available.
Charlotte married George Morgan, a shoemaker from East London, in 1863. Northampton was famous for its shoe-making industry. Charlotte and George did not have children. They settled in Stafford where Charlotte died in 1873.