Mother's Day

Charlotte Randall Barker Adams

Since today is only a week since Mother's Day, it seems appropriate to post a history of Charlotte Randall who lived in Old Whittington Hill when grandpa stopped by to meet her for the first time.

Life of Charlotte Randall

           Charlotte Randall grew up in the area surrounding the city of Chesterfield, primarily in the Nether Moor - Furnace Hill part of Wingerworth Parish.  Furnace Hill was named after the ironworks that stood there from the late 1700s to the early 1800s (Edwards).  Her father, George Randall, worked variously as a coal miner and agricultural laborer.  He likely also assisted the gamekeeper at Wingerworth Hall (Marriage Cert.).  Charlotte’s mother Sarah [Twelves] who lived into her 70s may have taught Charlotte to sew, a skill that she utilized as a seamstress while still young. Her great-granddaughter Belva Hall Francom wrote, “As a young girl she was a seamstress in Wingerworth Hall.  This people were called gentry or the upper middle class.  Through association with the upper class she became refined and cultured.”  While this claim can not be documented, photographs show her dressed in elaborately pleated and ruffled dresses.   

          Charlotte was the third of eight children and the second daughter.  The Randalls were quite poor, receiving assistance from the parish church.  The entire family may never have lived together under one roof as Charlotte, 17, and her sisters Hannah,15, and Harriett,12, were all working outside the home as servants when the 1861 Census was recorded.  Harriett’s work may have resulted in the initial introduction of the young couple. Charlotte’s little sister was working as a house servant for the Crofts family in Sutton cum Duckmanton with Frederick’s two brothers, Charles and Edwin, who were carters and so she may have had an opportunity to meet their older brother.

          At age 17 Charlotte had moved to the village of Barlborough to live and work for the Cast family. Cast was a butcher and a farmer who hired her on as a dairymaid.  Charlotte never spoke about milking, herding or tending dairy cattle, although she did reminisce in her later years about sewing for the gentry at Wingerworth Hall.  Perhaps the work wasn’t to her liking, but undoubtedly she learned how to perform a good day’s labor.  As a young widow this experience stood her in good shape to do the labor of a cleaning or charwoman.  Since Barlborough is at least ten miles from her home in Furnace Hill in Wingerworth Parish it is easy to imagine Charlotte walking the distance, stopping at Duckmanton to rest and visit with her sister before walking on to her parents’ home.  She apparently lived for a time in Duckmanton (Obituary).

Wingerworth Hall, Chesterfield, Derbyshire, England

           One thing that becomes apparent is that family stuck together and supported one another. Census records show that siblings in the Randall families lived with each other as adults. Family connections were strong between the Randall syblings as well as between the Barker and Randall families, a necessity in times of difficulty.  Charlotte’s older sister Mary Randall married Frederick’s older brother Henry Barker; two sisters married two brothers.  James Randall stood as witness when Mary and Henry were married.  Charlotte’s younger sister Hannah stood as witness when she and Frederick were married.  Hannah and her husband George Bown welcomed the youngest Randall daughter, Selina, to live in their home when she was 15 and after her father had died.  In that same year 1871 it is recorded in the census records that Hannah and George also had visiting with them their nephew George Barker, age 5, the son of Frederick and Charlotte - he appears to just be visiting as he show up in the same census living with his parents.  When Selina Randall married George Newton, they in turn, provided a home for her brother George, who at 29 was single and working as an engine tenter at the iron works.  It is recorded in the 1891 census that James Randall as a 52 year old widower took in the wife and daughters of his brother Jabez when Jabez found work in Whittington.  While in Whittington Jabez boarded with Selina and George.  Charlotte’s mother, Sarah, had outlived two husbands and at age 70 she is found living on Whittington Hill with one daughter, Hannah Bown, living on one side and another daughter, Selina Newton on the other side.  Down the road lived another daughter Charlotte Barker.   It appears that with small homes of 4 rooms or less, especially if finances required a family to take on a boarder, some children or even the father may be sent off to work or to live with a married sibling.  It must have sometimes been difficult to share close quarters but the families worked together to provide for each other.

             Children were born to the Frederick and Charlotte over the next few years.  Fred worked at several different occupations to support the family.  Both George and John were born in the  Wingerworth area where the couple took up residence after their wedding.  John’s birth certificate lists his father’s occupation as general laborer and at the birth of George two years later as gardener.  He was working as a farm laborer six years later when Jabez was born.  When George was married he is registered as a farmer.  A history written by a great-granddaughter states that “as a child he lived on a large farm in Bolsover.  He learned to handle horses while on the farm and later became a horse trainer.” (Francom) By the time Charlotte gave birth to Jabez they were located in Mosbro or Mosbrough  north of Chesterfield in Eckington Parish. 

            While in Mosbro two tragedies befell Charlotte.  Frederick was thrown from a horse he was breaking and suffered fatal injuries. “ The accident happened in the spring of 1874; he lived as an invalid until Sept. 1874 when he died in Mosbro, Derbyshire, England. With three children younger than John at home, Charlotte had to find a way to make money.  “She made money taking in roomers”(Francom). The next few years were undoubtedly trying ones for Charlotte and her children.  Within eight years, however, another heartbreaking incident occurred.  In 1876 she moved to Whittington to live where she worked as a cleaning or charwoman (Birth Cert.). Soon afterward Jabez who was only six years old was injured, suffering burns on his abdomen, chest, neck, and arms.  Because water was heated on a stove, it is possible that he pulled scalding water over onto himself or a similar situation.  According to the death certificate he died with his mother in attendance in December of 1877 after bearing the pain for 14 days.  It must have seemed like the pain couldn’t be handled but Charlotte had a baby boy, Edgar to take care of.  Fortunately, she also had John, George and Annie Alice to share her grief. 

Charlotte and George Adams family.

           Charlotte must have developed a supportive friendship with George Adams about this time, also, as indicated by a photograph in which Annie Alice is identified as the young girl and the boy is probably Edgar. The 1881 Census of Whittington shows that John, 18, and George, 15, had been working as coal miners to assist their mother.  Annie Alice was listed as a scholar.  George and Charlotte were married in 1882.  This event took place in Sheffield, Yorkshire, but they return to Whittington where Charlotte had been living. Adams had been a bachelor until he married at the age of 32 into a ready-made family.  Of this union a son, Joseph Harry was born in 1884 and welcomed by the older brothers and sister.  After John and Edgar moved individually to the United States, a correspondence with Joe was maintained.  

            John boarded a steamship in 1882 to travel to Utah where he took up coal mining once again in order to save money to send for his sweetheart, Rose Bacon.  Members of the Mormon Church, they lived in Wyoming for a time and then moved back to Utah where they raised eight children to adulthood and buried four.  At times John had to board away from home to work the coal mines, at others he was able to find work as a city maintenance worker, a brickyard part-owner/foreman, or constable.

           

            George was able to find employment away from the coal mines.  By 1887 he had married Mary Jane Owen and was working as a wagon builder.  In the 1891 Census he was found, again, hewing coal, but when John’s son, Jack Barker, visited England in 1925 he was a bobby or policeman. George and Mary Jane had five children, the first two born in Nottinghamshire and the last three in Yorkshire. 

            Annie married Frank E. Beresforde who also worked as a miner or colliery laborer.  They had one child who was born in Whittington where they continued to live close to Charlotte.

            Edgar married Lilian May Hewett and they followed John to America where they lived with he and Rose for a time until they were settled.  He was a good carpenter and also worked with John in the brickyards loading brick.  They raised six children, the first being born in Whittington, Derbyshire, the second and third in Worksop, Nottinghamshire, and the last four in Utah. 

                                                                                   

            Joe moved with his wife, Jess, and son, Geoffrey, to North Wales where he was a furnace manager in an iron-works plant (Adams).

Old Whittington Hill

             George Adams was to remain Charlotte’s companion into old age where they still lived on Whittington Hill in Old Whittington when her grandson, Jack Barker came to visit in the mid 1920s.  Of that occasion he wrote,

When I met her in 1925 at 56 Old Whittington Hill near Chesterfield, Derbyshire, England, she was a little old lady about 85 years old.  I would go out and buy fish and chips and we would play dominos while eating the fish and chips.  Her husband, George Adams, was an old man about 80 years old. . . 

When I found 56 Old Whittington Hill, I knocked on the door.  It was in the morning and Grandpa Adams was still in bed.  Grandma went over to the stairway and called him.  She said, "Come on, old foggy, it is time to get up."   After a while he came paddling down the stairs into the kitchen.  Grandma told him I was John's boy from America.  He was glad to see me and I spent some time telling him about America.  He was very glad to listen to me talk.  I went to the golf course with him to watch them play golf.  We spent a lot of time at the golf course. . . 

Charlotte outlived her second husband.  At age 86 she wrote a letter to her granddaughter, Mahala Barker Hall, in which she stated that she was very lonely after his death. 

Note: 

The photograph of Wingerworth Hall is from a postcard. It was originally found on the Chesterfield Forum.