Spotlight on Ann Susan Hardwick

Ann Susan Hardwick, my great-great-great-grandmother, was the daughter of Joseph Hardwick, a Wing carpenter, and his wife Mary (nee Syrett) and was born in Wing on 14 December 1843¹. Ann was the fifth of eight children - while the two eldest of her siblings had been baptised at All Saints Church there are no baptisms for Ann or the others, so perhaps Joseph and Mary had become disillusioned with the Church of England and drifted off to one of the non-conformist chapels.

You can see from the above excerpt of Ann's birth certificate that her father Joseph registered the birth. Joseph marked his name with an x here, but had been able to sign his name when he married 10 years earlier. I imagine that William Mortimer, the registrar of births and deaths for Wing, was a somewhat supercilious type who probably just assumed the working men and women in front of him were illiterate and never gave them a chance to try to sign their name!

The 1861 census was taken on 7 April 1861. Ann was 17 by this time, and working as an apprentice dressmaker². You can see that two of her brothers had followed her father into the carpentry trade. The family was living on Wing's High Street.

1861 was a big year for Ann as it happens, as that is when she fell pregnant with her first child and married the father (well, I'm assuming he was the father!) Andrew Pollard on 30 December in Wing³.

Ann would have just turned 18, although she's given her age as 19. Andrew was of course from Wing although he's given his address as the parish of St Matthias in Bethnal Green, London (ooh, I should see if I can find the banns record there!) - one could speculate that he'd moved down there for a few months to try his luck in a better job market, likely living with his step-brother and family who did live in that parish in the 1861 census, before the realisation of a certain conception necessitated his return to Wing! The witnesses to the marriage were Ann's brother George and his future betrothed Mary Ann Page.

Ann went on to give birth to thirteen children (only one died as an infant), while Andrew trained and worked as a blacksmith. Having young children at home didn’t stop Ann working as well – she is listed as a dressmaker in the census of 1871⁴.

Yes, that's Ann's parents Joseph and Mary Hardwick living right next door.

Andrew's work as a village blacksmith and farrier evidently paid well enough to maintain a large family in a standard high enough to have some of those new-fangled photographs taken! This photo appears in the book Wing As It Was by Richard and Rita Marks, LB Publishing 1985.

This photo was taken around 1890, so Ann was in her late 40s. I like to think that the family are all practising their most formal expressions for this portrait and that Ann wasn't so stern-looking all the time! I think my great-great-grandfather William is the lad in the light-coloured suit next to his father.

Ann was widowed in March 1898. After Andrew's death Ann herself took over running the blacksmith’s shop! She was not the only widow running a business, but it is curious that Andrew left the business to her in his will rather than passing it to one of their three sons already working as blacksmiths.

The above is an except from Kelly's 1903 directory of Buckinghamshire. Mrs Ann Susan Pollard is listed as blacksmith, and her eldest son Joseph Andrew is also listed as a farrier.

As well as maintaining the blacksmith business Ann also had her teenaged children still at home, along with one of her older daughters Ada Sarah Leah. Ada evidently had some mental problems as she is listed as "feeble-minded" in the 1901 census⁵.

You can see that the Pollards were a few doors along from the Dove Inn (which is at one end of High Street) which helps pinpoint their location. I wonder who Ann employed, beyond the one son still living at home? Previously there had been at least six men working for Andrew Pollard.

The last directory listing for Ann is in 1907. By the 1911 census⁶ she gives no occupation. The census records for 1911 are the original household schedules completed by the head of the household themselves (rather than a transcription of the household information made by the census enumerator on to enumeration sheets, as in previous years), so the entry below is in Ann's handwriting and signed by her.

The separate address page gives Ann's address as Hand Post - this was the area around the intersection of Leighton Road and Stewkley Road. By 1913 she was living at New Road, Wing, where she died of heart disease at age 69 on 14 March⁷. This may have been the residence of her son Andrew who was present at the death and the informant for the death certificate.

There is no surviving gravestone for her in Wing.

1. General Register Office, registration district Leighton Buzzard volume 6 page 89, December 1843 quarter
2. 1861 census RG9 piece 1007 folio 27 page 5, household 27
3. Parish registers of All Saints Church Wing Buckinghamshire, page 125 entry 250.
4. 1871 census RG10 piece 1563 folio 10 page 12, household 69
5. 1901 census RG13 piece 1509 folio 25 page 4, household 24
6. 1911 census RG14PN8976 RG78PN475 RD177 SD2 ED2 SN96
7. General Register Office, registration district Leighton Buzzard volume 3b page 389, March 1913 quarter

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Have you documented your family history, or written a biographical profile of one of your ancestors? Post a comment and point it out to us (if it's online) or tell us how you approached the task. I've adapted this post from material in my wee booklet about my ancestors, A Century In Wing Buckinghamshire, downloadable at the main Wing One Place Study website. This is structured by couple - it's a little out of date and I do know more now about the post-1900 and pre-1800 periods, but I want to focus on getting similar books put together on my other ancestral lines before returning to extend this book!

This post was inspired by Sara's equivalent on her great-grandfather from Iowa over at Lessons From My Ancestors. I found it really interesting to see the comparable version of documents in the US even though I don't have any ancestors from the US myself.