Meet my Great Aunt Eliza, one of the Blaco Hill Bell family from Mattersey, Nottinghamshire, my grandad Robert Bell’s elder sister.
She married William Henry Mitchell, a local postman, on Sunday 23 April 1899 at Sutton-cum-Lound Church.
She was 31 years old and he was 36
Witnesses were her eldest brother, George William Bell, aged 36, and Hannah Bell, who had flowing copperplate handwriting, which I rather envy, but who I’ve yet to add to my latest dip into family history.
In the register William Henry’s father George Mitchell is listed as a ‘Labourer’ and Eliza’s father, my Great Great Grandfather John Bell, then 57 years old, was working as a ‘Groom’.
Seven years earlier, as recorded in the 1891 census Eliza was working alongside William Henry at the house of Sarah E Hunt, a lady ‘living on own means’. William Henry, then 29, was the butler while Eliza, 23, was one of three female domestic servants at the house, number ’53, Sutton’.
Moving forward, by the time of the 1911 census the couple are living in Bardney, Lincoln. Henry is still working for the Post Office. They have a son George William aged 8, and born in Bardney.
I wonder if little George William added this decoration to the census form?
Or was it John Bell, also aged 8, his nephew who was staying with them and who had been born in Mexborough, Yorkshire.
Caleb Smith, Photographer
The wedding photograph is stamped ‘Caleb C. Smith’.
Caleb’s photographic studio was at Norman Place, Lincoln.
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