THE
FAMILY OF ROBERT LEE BORN 1820.
The line we shall now follow
is that of Robert Lee born 1820 at Armshead. As we have seen, he married Margaret Toft at St. Peter's
Church, Stoke, on June 2nd 1846.
The first of their children,
George, was born in 1847 when the family were living in Kingsley.
Mary, the second child, was baptised at Kingsley on June the 8th 1848.
She went on to marry William Fowler at Kingsley on the 18th of August
1870.
Fanny, their third child,
was also baptised at Kingsley, in the cold winter month of February, 1850.
Perhaps we should talk a little more of Fanny, the daughter who never
married and died a spinster at the ripe old age of twenty nine.
My early researches led me
to the village of Kingsley, a hamlet nestling in the hills which divide North
Staffordshire and West Derbyshire. It's a quiet little place and nothing ever
seems to be going on there, a place one always seems to pass through rather than
visit. At its highest point, the
Church of St. Werburgh, with its 600 year old tower, overlooks the beautiful
Churnet Valley which is spread before it like a panorama.
There is an ancient wooden sundial on the tower wall and by the
churchyard gates are grim relics of the bad old days: a stone pillar with a ring
to hold any village malefactor who needed a whipping, and blocks of stone to
which the hapless beasts were fastened in bull baiting days.
The old church oozes character, of that there is no doubt.
When first I entered the
churchyard, I was searching for my ancestors.
At the time, I was unsure whether they were Lee, Lea, Ley, Leigh or any
other derivation of the surname Lee. On
that visit, under a yew tree and in the shape of a memorial cross, I found one
Lee grave, that of Fanny, daughter of Robert and Margaret Lee, died September
3rd, 1879 aged 29. I entered the
details in my notes not knowing whether this particular grave was relevant to my
task. It was much later, when the
association was apparent that I realised that the Grave of Fanny was my first
"Lee" discovery. Since
then I have made a point to visit the grave two or three times a year, tidy it,
and plant a few flowers around it. Fanny,
my grandfather's sister, has become one of my "responsibilities".
The fourth child of Robert
and Margaret, William baptised on St Valentines day 1853 at Kingsley, was to
become my grandfather and a special chapter is devoted to him later in this
document. We will continue to Jane
who was baptised at Kingsley on the 8th of July 1858. I know nothing else about Jane nor do I know anything of
Robert born 1858.
The following child, Job
born 1860, married Mary Ellen Widdison. They
lived at Leek and Job became a Yeast Merchant.
They had three children, all born at Leek.
They were, John born 1883, Garnet?
born 1885, and of course, Margaret Jane Marshall, our little nibs to whom we owe
so much. Mary Ellen died in
1888 and Job remarried Elizabeth ?. They
had a child, Robert born 1890/91 at Leek. Mary
Ellen's grave is in Leek Cemetery and is numbered 3980. The adjacent grave, number 3979, contains the remains of Mary
Ellen's family, the Widdisons. Grave
number 3978 contains the remains of the Leek Lee family.
The eighth child, Emma born
1862, married Richard Wilson at Kingsley on the 25th of January 1890.
Peter Lee Wilson is a descendant of Richard and Emma and a contact
address for him is "The Spinney", Greendale, Oakamoor, Staffs.
The ninth child, Henry born
at Kingsley in 1870, died at Leek in 1891. The tenth child, Sarah Ann, was baptised at Kingsley in 1871
together with her sister Harriet. Nothing
else is known of Sarah Ann but we know that Harriet also died at Leek in 1891.
The last child of Robert and
Margaret was Ann, baptised at Kingsley on the 8th of July 1872.
She married Earnest Trafford, a butcher from Leek and died there on the
14th of June 1923. Her remains lie
in the same grave as her mother and father.
This, then, is the family of Robert Lee, five generations removed from the original George 1625.
Because of various changes
in the recording systems in the second half of the nineteenth century, a much
greater number of deposited records are now at our disposal and, because of
this, I was able to build up a much more detailed picture of this Lee family
than those I looked at previously. From
the 1851, 1861, 1871, 1881 and 1891 census returns, we know where they lived,
their ages, occupations and their place of birth. Marriage and death certificates are also more precise in
their details.
The 1851 census returns for
Kingsley reveal the whereabouts of Robert 1820 and his family.
Robert was not at home at the time of the census as the returns indicate.
Margaret
Lee Wife
Married 25
Lace worker born
Kingsley.
George
Lee Son
U/M
4
born Kingsley.
Mary
Lee Dau.
U/M
3
born Kingsley.
Fanny
Lee Dau.
U/M 1
born Kingsley.
Note:- Margaret Lee given as wife of
Robert Lee, house servant of Mr. Joseph Townsend.
Census return for Elm Tree House, Kingsley, confirms this.
Viz. Robert Lee, Married, aged 31. House servant.
born Stoke.
A very ordinary hard working
family. Robert was a house servant
and Margaret supplemented the family income by producing lace at home whilst she
was looking after the children. Most
working class families needed this small extra income to keep the wolf from the
door.
Here are the details from
the census return of 1861.
Kingsley. 1861.
Robert
Lee Head Married 40 Agricultural Labourer
Staffs. Armshead.
Margaret
Lee Wife Married 34 Housewife
Staffs. Kingsley.
George
Lee Son U/M 14 Iron Miner
Staffs. Kingsley.
William
Lee Son U/M
8 Scholar
Staffs. Kingsley.
Jane
Lee Dau. U/M
5 Scholar
Staffs. Kingsley.
Robert
Lee Son U/M
3
Staffs. Kingsley.
Job
Lee Son U/M
1
Staffs. Kingsley.
Both Mary and Fanny are
missing from this return but a quick search soon unearths them.
Mary, aged 13, is in Kingsley and is a house servant in the home of John
Bishop, a Shoemaker. Fanny (described as Frances) can be found at her Uncle Job's
at Armshead. She is aged 10 and her
occupation is described as a nurse - probably to her cousin Francis who is nine
months old.
We can see a progression in
the family as the years pass by. Robert
has now gone into agriculture. Margaret
is too busy looking after the kids to continue with her cottage industry lace
making, and George, the eldest son, has taken up mining - an occupation which
the Lee family have followed for generations.
The decade has seen the addition of four more family members, three of
which were baptised at St. Werbergh's, Kingsley.
The 1871 census shows
further development and if we look at the Kingsley church registers we can
discover more details on these events. We
see that George, the eldest child of Robert and Margaret, and Mary, the second
eldest, have both married. The
entries in the register state:
1869, December 28th,
Marriage of George Lee, aged 23, Miner, to Martha Forrester, aged 20, Spinster
of Kingsley. (George and Martha's
first child, William, was baptised at Kingsley on November 20th 1870.)
1870, August 18th, William
Fowler, aged 27, Bachelor, Miner of Kingsley and Mary Lee aged 22, Spinster,
domestic Servant of Kingsley.
Let us now look at the
census returns for 1871. Note, the
entries for the two families were consecutive in the returns, indicating they
were neighbours.
KINGSLEY.
VILLAGE OF HOOD.
Robert
Lee. Head
Married 46
Ag. Labourer. Staffs.
Cheddleton.
Margaret
Lee. Wife
Married 43
Wife.
Staffs. Kingsley.
William
Lee. Son
U/M 18
Iron Miner.
Staffs. Kingsley.
Robert
Lee. Son
U/M 13
Scholar.
Staffs. Kingsley.
Job
Lee. Son
U/M 11
Scholar.
Staffs. Kingsley.
Emma
Lee. Dau.
U/M
8 Scholar.
Staffs. Kingsley.
Sarah
Lee. Dau.
U/M
6 Scholar.
Staffs. Kingsley.
Harriet
Lee. Dau.
U/M
4 Scholar.
Staffs. Kingsley.
Henry
Lee. Dau.
U/M
2
Staffs. Kingsley.
KINGSLEY.
VILLAGE OF HOOD.
George
Lee Head
Married 24
Iron Miner
Staffs. Kingsley.
Martha
Lee Wife
Married 21
Miner's Wife. Staffs.
Kingsley.
William
Lee Son.
U/M
5 mths. -
Staffs. Kingsley.
We will ignore George and
his new family. A separate chapter,
The Whiston Lee's, is devoted to them later in this book.
For now we will continue
with the family of Robert and Margaret. We
can see that William has followed in his brother's footsteps and is now an Iron
Miner. The rest of the children are
all attending the local school, except the youngest, Henry, who is years old.
Fanny, aged 21, and Jane, aged 16, are missing, probably working as
servants elsewhere in the community.
Of all the Lee families I
have researched, the family of Robert and Margaret must be the most highly
organised and intelligent. One cannot help but admire them.
Of course, it's easy to read too much from statistics but, considering
the size of their family, (12 children), the orderliness of their births is
nothing short of astonishing. I'm
sure that the ladies reading this will know how difficult it would have been to
plan as they did. The births
occurred in 1846/48/50/53/55/58/60/62/65/67/70 and 72.
The epitaph on Margaret's grave at Leek, reads, "Many mothers have
done virtuously, but thou excellest them all". It would be difficult not to concur with this statement.
Not only were they orderly
and intelligent, they were also an extremely talented musical family.
My own grandfather, William baptised 1853, was a superb player of the
clarinet according to the account my father told of him.
Together with his brothers, he played in a band or orchestra which
performed for the King of England. It
was also rumoured in the family that his sisters were talented musicians. What is fact is that I have collected photographs of George
(1846) and three of his sons with their musical instruments.
The 1881 census takes us
another ten years into the lives of this family and, as we can see, another
decade of orderly progress.
KINGSLEY.
THE FIELDS.
Robert
Lee Head
Married 60 Labourer at Iron
Mines. Staffs. Stoke.
Margaret
Lee Wife
Married 54
Staffs. Kingsley.
William
Lee Son
U/M 28
Iron Miner
Staffs. Kingsley.
Robert
Lee Son
U/M 23
Iron Miner
Staffs. Kingsley.
Job
Lee Son
U/M 21 Iron
Miner
Staffs. Kingsley.
Harriet
Lee Dau.
U/M 14
Scholar
Staffs. Kingsley.
Henry
Lee Son
U/M 12
Scholar
Staffs.
Kingsley.
Ann
Lee Dau.
U/M 8
Scholar
Staffs. Kingsley.
Robert
and Margaret had their last child, Ann, in 1872, but they also lost Fanny who
died in 1879. Dad Robert, and sons
William, Robert and Job are all working so there would be no poverty in this
house. On the contrary, they would
be quite well off. The headstone on
Fanny's grave gives us a clue to this. The
multiple tiered base supporting a cross and constructed of local stone is quite
a substantial memorial.
There is, perhaps, one black
mark for the orderly family - a curious entry in the Kingsley Parish registers.
It reads:
1879, Dec.
29th. S.B. daughter of Jane Lee, Domestic Servant of Kingsley.
Poor
Jane. Would she become the black
sheep of the family? She never
surfaced again in my researches but I'm sure she would make a worthy task for
anyone to find.
We will now leave the family
of Robert and Margaret in this small village poised high above the River Churnet,
for they next appear a few miles to the North, in the busy market town of Leek.
A place where tragedy would overwhelm them.