LiveTheirStory

Sarah Chapman appears on the same face of the memorial as Sarah Shanks. Their story is clearly intertwined, but how? In fact Sarah Chapman had also been a Sarah Shanks (nee Barrs), the wife and then widow of William Shanks, and so mother to Sarah and Ann.

Born in 1804, she first appears in the 1841 census married to William and known as ‘Betsey’, living in Pidley with their three children, Ann, John and Sarah. William died in 1849, and the loss of his income as an agricultural labourer left Sarah in vulnerable circumstances. The 1851 census shows both her daughters in service locally, whilst Sarah remained in Pidley working as a laundress and living with her son, John, also an agricultural labourer. They also took in a lodger to make a few extra pennies.

Sarah’s subsequent life, however, was itinerant: her son’s marriage in 1852 probably forced her to move away from Pidley to her daughter Ann and son-in-law Reuben’s house in Somersham, where she was in 1861. Her occupation is given as ‘Nurse’, likely supporting her daughter with their three children including a newborn.

The ten years from 1861 to 1871 saw a change in the household, as two of these children died (and another five were born). By 1871 Reuben and Ann had moved to Chatteris, and his mother Phoebe had taken up residence with them. Whilst we cannot speculate on the relationship between Reuben and his mother-in-law, a marriage record at St Ives in 1865 between one Sarah Shanks and John Chapman suggests that Sarah sought support elsewhere in her early 60s.

If so, she was to suffer another loss: by 1871 the widowed Sarah Chapman was living alone in Church Lane, Somersham. The census entry has ‘destitute’ crossed out, and ‘Nurse’ added, and other information supports our identification of her as the same woman.

Sarah’s advancing age may have contributed to her move to Chatteris, where she lived alone in Hive Lane in 1881, giving her occupation as ‘former housekeeper’. She died aged 83 or 85, and is memorialised on the same side of the stone as her daughter, who predeceased her by a year.