18 - The Booth Family
(Samuel and Mary)

Household 18 was an intriguing family but also a very difficult to research one owing to their common name.

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This small family was made from Samuel Booth, born in December 1824 in Bredbury, his wife Mary, born around 1833 in Ireland, and their son Robert Watson Booth who was born in 1860 in Danbury, Connecticut, USA.

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In 1851 Samuel was working as a carter and living with his parents on Ridling Lane in Hyde. 9 years later he was married to Mary and working as a hatter in Danbury, Connecticut, USA, with a personal estate of $100. 

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At some point in the 1860s the family had moved to Romiley Road, where Samuel worked as a hatter, Mary was not working and Robert was full time in school.

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In 1872 Samuel was involved in an accident whilst fixing a forming machine for a Mr Shelmerdine at Stockport. 3 of his fingers were crushed in the machine and he had to be taken to Stockport Infirmary.

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The family remained in the area, living in neighbouring Bredbury on Bents Lane in 1881, all working in the hat trade.

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I found an article from September 1886 that tells us the Booth family were a nuisance in the area. On this occasion Samuel Booth had summoned his son Robert for threatening him, but neither turned up to court, a situation that was constantly happening. The article tells us that Robert had found a job and was going to leave the neighbourhood.

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We next find Robert marring Fanny Ashby in Luton, Bedfordshire in 1889. They appear, along with Mary Booth, in the 1891 census. Whilst Robert worked as a hatter, Fanny worked as a machinist and Mary was a charwoman who appears to be widowed, Samuel having died in 1887. Mary would follow in 1894.

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I was unable to track Robert or Fanny down until the 1911 census where Robert was back in Stockport, listed as being single, living in a huge lodging house on Canal Street. 

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