Mardler October 2018 JS

Local History
baby Lydia in 1850. The couple married quietly in 1858. In
1859 George lost his job again, for reasons unknown and
returned to Bury St Edmunds to find work, leaving Elizabeth
and the now 6 children without funds to support them.
A desperate Elizabeth applied to the Brockdish parish
overseers for support, in spite of living in Beccles. The great
advantage of the poor law ‘settlement’ rules was that if you
could claim a ‘settlement’ in a parish through birth, marriage or
long term employment, the parish was obliged to support you
when you couldn’t support yourself. Elizabeth, through her
marriage to George, and his children, because they were
legitimately his progeny, all qualified for support from
Brockdish parish. The parish overseer had the power to
compel George to agree that his employer could deduct
money (the sum of 5 shillings a week) from his wages for the
support of his family and George signed that agreement.
The Bury job didn’t last though and George was obliged to go
even further afield for work, fetching up in the 1861 census in
lodgings in Cowden, Kent working locally, again as a ‘tanner’.
Elizabeth was still in Beccles but was still being supported by
George. But ten years later, George was no longer working
and had been admitted to the Union Workhouse in Milton,
Kent, by then 69 years old, probably too unwell to work and
Elizabeth had chosen to join him, accompanied by her two
daughters Lydia age 22 and Harriet age 13. Elizabeth had
been given work at the workhouse as a nurse, probably in
simple exchange for her own board and lodging.
George died in the workhouse a year later in 1872, Elizabeth
stayed on as ‘inmate’ and ‘nurse’, Lydia staying with her. Lydia
died in the workhouse, in 1894, only 44 years old; Elizabeth
also died in the workhouse in 1897.
26