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| Steam engine of the type that George Rochester may have worked on.* |
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| St. Mary & St. Cuthbert Church where George was likely baptised. The church Portions of the current building are over 950 years old, and the oldest surviving translation of the Christian Gospels into English was done here in the middle of the 10th century. * |
George wed Elizabeth Scholey on Christmas Day 1836 in the parish of Rothwell, Holy Trinity at the town of Wakefield in West Yorkshire. Elizabeth was a Yorkshire lass born in Castleford, another Roman town, about 30 km south of Leeds and 15 km west of where she was married. When Elizabeth was born, the town was likely a small village of around 1,000, and even by the time she and George married Castleford and the surrounding area had only about 1500 people. But after that, a coal mining boom swelled the population to 14,000.
Elizabeth’s family had moved back and forth between Castleford and Leeds, and George and Elizabeth married and lived in Leeds. The year after they married, she gave birth there to a daughter, Sarah, named after her husband George’s mother.
In 1840, the couple had another child, Thomas (George's father’s name), in Hunslet, a suburb of Leeds. By the 1841 census, George had moved with his wife and two children back north (past Chester-le-Street) to Bedlington, which apparently was on the border of counties Durham and Northumberland as the town and registration district appears alternately in both.
George was shown in the census as an engineer, which could mean a number of things. Since later documents show him as an engine fitter and as a mechanic, this use of the term engineer was related to mechanical work and would have been a trade that he apprenticed for rather than went to university for (as an engineer would today).
Of course there were no cars, trucks, or airplanes in the mid-1800, so there were limits on what he’d have been doing as an engine fitter, but the engines he’d have been working with would have been steam engines.
Steam technology had been experimented with by the Greeks and dabbled with in the Middle Ages. But it wasn't until nearly 1700 before a steam engine was designed that had practical application for industrial use. Initially steam engines were steam-powered pumps created to replace the horse-drawn pulley systems (read horsepower) used in coal mines. They were huge outdoor installations that would have been built on site and designed never to be moved.
Throughout the 1700s, steam engines were modified and adapted to other uses, including indoor use in factories. Steam engines gradually became smaller, and it was this innovation that allowed the invention of the train, which changed the world at the time and significantly accelerated industrial progress. The first steam-powered locomotive was built in Britain in 1804, and there was no going back. Tracks were laid and within a few decades, trains were replacing horse and man-power as the main form of goods transportation on land in Europe.
By the time George was an adult in the 1830s, steam engines were used in a variety of applications including trains, factories and mines. In the mid-1800s, the industrial revolution in England was in full swing. Most major industry was using machinery of one kind or another, although they were still heavily dependent on workers.
The frequent moves that George Rochester makes me wonder if he may have worked for the railroad, but there is no evidence to support this other than that the towns where he lived were railroad hubs. It is distinctly possible that he worked with other types of engines, such as those used in manufacturing or even in mining. Each of the locations where he lived were centres of manufacturing and they also had at least one mine, usually coal.
The term engine fitter describes the process of installing an engine and is specific to that activity. ‘Engine fitter’ is different from ‘engine smith,’ for example, who made the parts for an engine and repaired those parts when necessary working like a blacksmith, but did not fit the engine. And ‘engineman’ worked in a coal mine (or colliery) winding machinery. An ‘engine tenter’ oversaw the operation of the steam engine driving factory machinery.
If fitting or installing engines was George’s speciality, then that would explain his frequent moves. Once he was finished installing the engine, his job would be done, and he’d need to move on to another job. He may have done several jobs in each area where they lived, and moved only when the jobs ran out or he found better opportunities elsewhere. Because that was a fairly new occupation, he may have been well-paid and even sought after for his skills. This family appears to live in nicer accommodation that some of our other ancestors.
Bedlington was an industrial town with an iron works and several coal mines, so these would be candidates for George’s skills. Bedlington is famous for giving its name to the Bedlington Terrier dog.
George and Elizabeth had two more children while living in that area: Mary Eliza born in Bedlington in 1841 and then Rachel born in Morpeth in 1843. Rachel was named for her mother’s mother. Bedlington and Morpeth are just seven kilometres apart, so the family was in the same region for a few years, but honestly could have moved away and back again for all we know. It is possible that they moved every year or even every few months but we can only track them by birth, marriage, death and census records. If there was no event while they lived somewhere, we might never know they were there. We would assume that they stayed in one place for a length of time when in fact they were in and out of that place several times in between recorded events.
By 1844 the family was back in Leeds, where Elizabeth gave birth to a daughter named Isabell or Isabella. It was not long, however, before they were on the move again, and in 1847, the couple had a son in Manchester who they named George.
During the 1851 census the family was again living in Hunslet, Yorkshire and their address was 5 Regent Terrace in the ecclesiastical parish of St. Jude. Google Street View shows that while this house still exists and is very run-down today, it probably was quite posh in the 1850s. It has two main storeys plus a basement, which is much larger than most of the housing we have seen for other ancestors. It also has a small enclosed yard in front and may very well have had a private back garden or courtyard.
George was 38 and listed as an engine fitter, and thirteen-year-old daughter Sarah was working as a flax spinner. By this time there was a law requiring children to attend school until they were 14, so having a job at 13 was a little young but only just. However, Thomas (11), Mary (9), Rachel (7), and Isabell (6) were all attending school. The youngest shown was George at 4, which seems to indicate that most, if not all, their offspring survived childhood, which was unusual back then. The only thing that makes me think they may have had children that didn’t survive is that none were named for wife Elizabeth’s father, who was named John. This could indicate that there was a son born who did not survive who was named John, but there are no records to support this theory, and a break in children could have been a result of George being away working. They may also have used John as a second name with Thomas or George to cover the obligation of naming children after their parents and grandparents.
In 1854, they had another son, named Richard (again, not John), in Hunslet. Unfortunately, Elizabeth died a few years later of typhus fever on 15 November 1858. She was 46. The family was living at Hudswell Terrace in Hunslet at the time of her death, and George was shown as an 'engine smith journeyman.' Elizabeth was buried on 17 November 1858 at Leeds General Cemetery at Woodhouse.
In the 1861 census, widower George had his four youngest children living with him, and, at 47, was again shown as an engine fitter. Fourteen-year-old son George was working as a wheel turner. Research shows that this was related to the train industry and adds support for his father working with the railroad. The occupation of wheel turner was listed as 'railway wagon wheel turner' in other documentation and was shown to occur at railway carriage manufacturers (wagon works). This was a skilled position involving fine finishing work on railway carriage wheels.
There was no occupation shown for 17-year-old Rachel or 16-year-old Isabella. Schooling only went until 14 years of age and unless a family was well-off, unmarried girls would have had jobs. It is possible that the family was wealthy enough for them not to work. It is also possible that they were looking after children of relatives or neighbours, which was often overlooked as an occupation.
The home was at 20 Edgar Street in Leeds. This address was just around the corner from where daughter Rachel would be living in the 1871 census after she was married and widowed, so they may have considered this neighbourhood as home, and other family members may have stayed in it.
The following year, George remarried. His second wife was named Ellen Ripley and was born in North Duffield, Yorkshire (near York) in 1823 or 1824. This would make her 38 or 39 when they married. Based on her age, one would think she was a widow and that this was her second marriage as well. However, the marriage certificate shows that she was spinster. Her address at the time of the marriage was Edgar Street in Leeds, and this was also the name of the street where widower George lived in the 1861 census. So they may have been neighbours, although at the time of the marriage George's address was shown as Ellerby Street so he had moved from Edgar Street by then.
Sadly, the couple would only be married five years before George died on 05 August 1867. He died in the Leeds Infirmary of cancer and was shown to be a machine fitter on his death certificate. He was buried in Hunslet Cemetery on 11 August 2014.
So even though George started life in Chester-le-Street, Durham, and the family moved around a lot, they considered Leeds home. This fits with the customs of the time, which usually had the man moving to where his wife was from if they were not from the same area. There were two reasons for this. First, for the couple to have met at all, the man had probably already relocated to the area where the woman lived, since women did not move around much without their families. Second, it was common for women to stay living near their families. This would allow them to get help raising their children from female relatives, which was important at the time. Often husbands were away working or serving in the military, and wives were left behind with their children. Living close to their mothers, sisters, aunts or grandmothers allowed them to support each other.
In the 1871 census, George’s second wife and widow, 47-year-old Ellen, was living in Leeds with her step-son Richard, who was 17. All the other children had married and moved on, but records indicate that they all stayed in the Leeds area. Ellen was listed as a dressmaker, which was something she may have done from home. Richard was shown to be an apprentice of some kind (but it is unreadable). She and Richard were living at 44 Elgin Street still in the Hunslet area of Leeds in Yorkshire.
By the 1881 census, 29-year-old Richard was still living with Ellen, and George’s daughter Isabella had moved in. She was shown as a widow (at 36) and with her were two children, who were both in school. Ellen was again a dressmaker. Richard was a coal dealer, and Isabella was a fibre rope maker. They were all living at 30 Endon Street in Hunslet.
In 1891, Ellen had step-daughter Isabella’s two teenage children at 28 Dial Terrace. Both Richard and Isabella were gone. Widowed Isabella either died or remarried; both are possible but cannot be confirmed. Richard disappears completely with no census records after 1881 but a potential death record in 1917 indicates he was alive.
It is unclear what happened to daughter Sarah and son Thomas because of the commonness of their names. Mary Eliza married Robert Broades at St. Mary the Virgin Church in Hunslet in 1865 and disappeared until her death in 1904 (her husband may have been in the military serving out of England and she went with him). Rachel had several children with two husbands and was widowed twice before she died in 1920. Son George conceivably died in 1872 in his 20s.
Considering Ellen and George were only married for a few years before he died, Ellen seems to have stepped up as the matriarch in the family and gone above and beyond with her step-children and step-grandchildren. She died in 1899 in Leeds at age 77.
Prepared using information available as of 01 December 2014.
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