My Favourite Photo - Week 6 of "52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks"

There was no doubt in my mind which Photograph I would choose for the latest "52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks" prompt.  - that of my great grandmother Maria Rawcliffe, who was the inspiration  for my family history activities. 

 

Maria  with her eldest granddaughter  Annie Maria.   Annie looks to be around 12 years old, so I reckon this photograph dates from around 1916. 

It started  in a shoe-box!  It was a treat if I was allowed to browse through the shoe-box  of  family memorabilia kept in a cupboard at my grandfather's house .The character of my great-grandmother, Maria Rawcliffe (1859-1919) appealed to me.  She looked a rather formidable figure in this photographa. Maria's name struck me as an evocative mixture of down-to-earth Lancashire grit with echoes of a more flamboyant Latin nature. 

The findings in the actual research were much more prosaic, but gave ample inspiration for writing stories about her life.  

 

• Maria was born in the small village of Hambleon , near Fleetwood on the English north west coast.   She was sixth of eight   daughters born of Robert Rawcliffe (an agricultural labourer and carter)  and Jane Carr. 
  
  
• There was a, no doubt,  apocryphal family story that “granny’s dark looks” came from Spanish descent, after an Armada ship had been wrecked off the Lancashire coast and the rescued sailors made their home in the area.   
  
  My DNA showed no signs a Spanish ancestry,  as I had secretly hoped might be the case.  I did find an account of the incidence in a local history of Hambleton - but it was not  a Armade ship but  one later in the 17th   century. 
   
•  I sent away for Maria's  birth certificate and,  in one of those remarkable family history coincidences, it  was 15th January   -  the very same date as my daughter 114 years later - no wonder I count Maria as my favourite  ancestor!
  
  
•  By comparison with her name of Maria, her sisters had much more ordinary names - Anne, Jane, Margaret, Alice, Jennet, Peggy and Martha, with three children dying in infancy.
  
  I later found that Maria's name  was  around 15th in popularity in  the mid 19th century, so not quite as exotic as I first thought.       
  
  
• Maria's mother died when she was only 6 years old,  Her father remarried a single woman with three illegitimate children and  the couple  went onto have  four children including two sons.   

• At 18 years old, Maria was living with her eldest sister Anne and family,  when she married my grandfather James Danson, a joiner,  of nearby Poulton le Fylde,  She went on to have  ironically    ten sons,  before the birth of her only daughter Jennie in 1897.  Two babies did not survive infancy. 

• The Puzzle of a Change in Name -  According to her birth certificate  and baptismal record Maria's name was simply that.   Yet in many official documents including  her 1877 marriage certificate, the 1881 census,and my grandfather's 1907 birth certificate, her first Christian name was given as Martha - the name of her youngest sister who died at 4 months old.  Maria was only just four years old at the time, so could hardly have remembered her, so why did she choose to adopt her name?  To her two granddaughters, who are still alive, Granny's name was Maria.

  My interest in Maria led me to make contact with her  two granddaughters still alive and I got wonderful first hand memories of Maria, more memorabilia  and touched her est ea and her jewellery passed down through the family.  
  
  

• Maria’s life experiences were probably very typical for women in that period of history,  The early twentieth century proved a testing time:

• 1905 -  Maria’s daughter- in - law, Sarah.  married to son John, died of consumption at the age of 21, a year after giving birth to baby Annie Maria Danson, (the young girl above)  who was immediately taken to live  with her grandmother.

 

Little Annie aged about 4 years old. 

• 1906 - Maria’s husband James Danson died,  leaving Maria a 47 year old widow with most of her large family still   living at home, three of them under 14 years of age. 

• 1907  - Maria’s eldest son Harry died at the age of 30 due to a heart attack.

• The First World War saw five Danson brothers called up for Army service - John, William (my grandfather), Tom, Frank and George - a worrying time. 
  
  
• 1916 -  Maria’s youngest son George was killed on the Somme 16th September 1 whilst serving as a stretcher bearer in the field - a perilous role in the heat of the battle. He had just marked his 22nd birthday and his service record showed him to be a slight figure for such a role -  5 foot  3 inches in height, only 110bs  in weight and he also ore glasses. 
  
  
  
  
  
• 1917 - eight months later, further tragedy struck with the news of the death on 17th May of son John, aged 38 who  had killed himself whilst in army training - his death certificate gave the stark statement - “Cut his throat whilst temporarily  insane”.  He left his young daughter Annie Maria an orphan.
  
  
  
  Poulton War Memorial
  
  
  
• 1919 - Maria Danson, née Rawcliffe died aged  60. 

 Maria in a undated  photograph held by her granddaughter. 

Maria's life has given me endless stories for my family history,  from the lives of her sisters , parents and stepmother to the lives of her own children - and also brought me the first knowledge of emigrant ancestor - her sister Alice who emigrate to the USA in 1886 and I made contact with a third cousin and her fextended amily.  

Maria led  her life with determination and commitment to her family, amidst times of hardship, misfortune and  great sadness.  But above all  I admire her resilience. 

 

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