Biography: David Pickles (1811-1869) & Mary Styran or Styan (1813-1878)

The history of this branch of the Pickles family is tied to the business of tobacco pipe making. Almost everyone in the family made pipes — even the women had a hand in at different times, either before they wed or after they were widowed.

The smoking of tobacco became common in both Europe and the Americas during the 16th century. As with most things, it was initially only the wealthy who could afford to take up the hobby (or habit) due to the high cost of tobacco. Gradually the prices came down and eventually it was affordable for the lower classes. Since cigarettes had not been introduced by the 1800s, tobacco was typically smoked in pipes.

Although most pipes today are made from wood, in the early years, they were made from clay. Pipes made from Briar wood were introduced in the early 1800s because of their durability, but these were used mainly by the wealthy, at least for the first years. Lower-priced clay pipes were made by casting in moulds. Better-quality clay pipes were hand shaped. Wood pipes were carved.

In England, pipes were made by ‘citizen' pipe makers (who were often poor) as well as by craftsman, but in the nineteen century they were also mass produced in factories. It appears that the Pickles family pipe makers were the craftsmen kind with their own shop or shops.

We don’t know when the family began making pipes, but this pipe-making story begins with David Pickles, who was born 23 March 1811 in Leeds, Yorkshire, England. He was baptized August 4 of that same year in the parish of St. Peter.

David was 19 years old and already a tobacco pipe maker in 1930 when he married Mary Styran, who was from France. The town where she was born was listed as Metz, Nièvre on her birth record. There are two places called Metz in France, but only one of them in Nièvre, which is a ‘department’ in the province of Burgundy. Departments are administrative divisions in France and might be the equivalent of a regional district. The Metz in Nièvre is about 200 km south of Paris and is officially Metz-Le-Comte now. The town currently has a population of only 200 people, so was likely very small then as well. The alternative Metz has a population of close to 400,000 and is about 200 km east of Paris. I include both in case the reference to the Nièvre department is a mistake. Whatever town she was from, it is not clear if she and her family were French or if they were English and she just happened to be born in France. It is also unclear where David and Mary met. David may have gone to France for some reason and brought her back. We just don't know.

We do know that when they wed on 17 August 1830, Mary was 17. Banns for the marriage had been published since the middle of July. Publishing banns was a fairly common way of getting married in the 1800s and earlier. A couple (or their families) would tell the church’s minister of the intention to marry. The minister would announce the intention aloud during church services or by writing it on a board (publish). Once a specific number of ‘banns’ had been read or published, the couple simple had to show up at the church and the minister declared that they were married in front of witnesses. Sometimes this declaration was done for several couples at the same time during a scheduled mass and often on special occasions like Christmas. Since the couple or their families would have had to pay a fee to the church for the marriage, it was potentially cheaper to do it this way than to book the church and the minister for a specific marriage ceremony.

David signed the marriage registry, so he could read and write. There was an X for Mary, so she could not. The fact that David could write, which was not a skill necessarily required for a pipe maker, is evidence that the family already owned a shop or shops. At the time David was growing up, school was not mandatory in England. Only the wealthy sent children to school. People who owned a business, however, would need to know how to read and write to keep books, and would have taught their children to do the same, along with the family trade.

David and Mary had their first child, a son named John, in June of 1831 — about 10 months later, so it would appear that the marriage was not due to a pregnancy, (although it is possible that the dates were fudged as it is very close; ministers often back-dated marriage documents to legitimize children). The marriage was recorded in the parish church of Leeds, which would be Church of England and thus Anglican. France was mainly Roman Catholic, but as noted we don’t know if Mary was French or just born there to English parents. If she was a French Roman Catholic, it is possible that there were two marriages — one in an Anglican church in England for his family (and for the official government registry) and another in a Catholic church in France for her family.

The couple had a second son they named Samuel Luke on 2 July 1832. A daughter named Jane or Jayne was born in 1835 and another daughter, Sophia, in 1838 — all in Leeds.

In the 1841 census, the family had moved to Wallsall Road in the township of Willenham in the borough of Wolverhampton — just outside of the city of Birmingham. This is about 200 km southwest of Leeds (where David and Mary were married and had their first children). Willenhall is currently a medium-sized town (population today is 40,000) in the Black Country area of the West Midlands.

David was again shown as a pipe maker, and with him and his wife were children Luke (Samuel Luke), Jane and Sophia. First child John was not listed and was presumed to have died. Also in the house were two men who later become journeymen pipe makers: William Small or Snell (24) and Charles Pike (20) with his wife Ann. So there were three pipe makers under the same roof, which indicates that David had his own shop or was working in a family shop, and these two men were employees. Maybe he set up a Pickles family pipe shop there, trained some pipemakers and then let them run the business for the family. This is just a guess.

By 1845, the family was back in Yorkshire, living in Tadcaster, a town about half way between Leeds and York where the could had another child they named John to replace the son who must have died years earlier. This was a timely move for the family, as Willenhall, where they were living in 1841, suffered a cholera epidemic in 1849 that killed 292 people.

In 1849 they had moved for at least the second time since Willenhall, this time to the city of York, and Mary gave birth to another girl there, Angelina. Two years later the family was back in Leeds where they started. In the 1851 census, they were living at 17 Wheat Street in Leeds — and yes, David was still a tobacco pipe maker, and his 18 year-old son Samuel Luke was listed as a pipe maker as well. Also in the house were Mary, Jane, Sophia, Angelina, and the second John. It is possible that Jane was also working as a pipe maker based on marks on the census. 

They had another daughter, apparently their last child, Caroline that same year, 1851, in Leeds. And by the 1861 census, the family had moved to York — again. They were living at 166 Wilsons Row in the parish of St. Cuthbert, and 50-year old David is, of course, making pipes. Samuel Luke was 29 and living with his parents at the time of the census and continued to be a pipe maker. John, then 15, had joined his father and brother in the family business. Angelina and Caroline were both in school.

Interestingly, both David's and John's names appear in newspaper articles. In one story, 15-year-old John Pickles, son of pipe-maker David Pickles, had been stabbed by another boy in the street. The other boy appeared to dislike John and his friends and was making derogatory comments about John's parents having to move to Layerthorpe. Duke of York Street was obviously a better neighbourhood than Layerthorpe, also indicated by the address being a 'yard,' which usually implies it is at the back of a building. This might indicate the family had fallen on hard times.

In 1864, at age 31, Samuel Luke finally married. This is quite old to be getting married and so there was likely a reason for it, but we don't know what that was. Often a late marriage indicated military service, but that has not been confirmed. Samuel and his wife, Rachel Rochester, had two sons in the late 1860s and although they were married in Leeds, moved to York, probably to work in the family business. Samuel's father David appeared in a York city directory as being a business owner, so they certainly had a pipe shop in York at that time.

Both David and tragically, his son Samuel Luke, died in 1870 in York. Samuel succumbed at the age of 38 of phthisis, a form of tuberculosis. David died of congestion of the liver a few months later.

In the 1870 York city directory, David’s son John was shown as business owner and had obviously taken over the York shop for his late father. There were actually two more newspaper articles about John getting into fights in 1869 and 1870. So even though he took over the business from his dad, he must have been a bit of a bad boy (maybe the stabbing made him confrontational). He may also have been going through a rough time with the death of both his father and his brother is such a short period of time.

By the 1871 census, David’s widow Mary had moved in with her youngest daughter Caroline, who was married to a pipe maker. Either Caroline met her husband because he worked for her family in the pipe business, or he became a pipe maker because of his association with Caroline’s family.

Mary was an ‘annuitant,’ which meant that she was collecting an annuity of some kind. There were almost no pension plans at the time other than military for long service or injury. Since David did not appear to have served in the military (at least not for any significant length of time), Mary was in all likelihood collecting from David’s share of the family business.

Mary died in 1878 in Yorkshire at age 65.

Prepared using information available as of 01 December 2014.