Cheshire of Shropshire

Family tree: Thomas Cheshire descendants

Richard Bishop’s dying wish was that his cousin Samuel Cheshire must look after his wife Eliza after his death. A family joke is that Sam certainly fulfilled his promise – he married Eliza and added five children to the family!

Eliza and Sam lived in a house in New Park Road in Shrewsbury; it was within sight and smell of the gas works and close to the allotments and band-stand hall. We loved the garden with its lilac tree and gooseberry bushes, the parlour had a black range and big leather furniture.

Sam was gassed in the war and died of TB when my Dad was only 16. Eleanor Cheshire was Sam’s mother and sister to Mary Jane Cheshire, who married Richard Bishop (see Bishop family page).

Eleanor ended up in Atcham workhouse in 1901 with her three boys—her youngest daughter was living with Mary Jane, but where were her two older daughters? Martha Jane and Louisa Chesher were found in the 1901 census as inmates at the Dr Barnardo’s Home in Barkingside Ilford in Essex. Just a few months later, they were transported to the Hazelbrae home in Peterborough in Ontario Canada aboard the S.S. Tunisian. There is a diary of Alfred B Owen who gives a graphic account of the children’s crossing (188 boys and 102 girls). The last we know of Martha and Louisa was an entry in the visitor’s notebook of Barnardo’s Canadian ‘Ups and Downs’ magazine where it was confirmed that at least they were able to see each other every day.

The only photo we have
of Sam Cheshire

Atcham workhouse
laundry

Cheshire of Birkenhead

In the early days of collecting information on the Cheshires, I was convinced that our family sprang from Birkenhead. Subsequently I was to find that the Samuel Cheshire that I thought was my grandfather died on the day of his birth in 1890. Tragedy struck the family again in 1901 when Samuel’s father died. The cause of death was: ‘Suffocation consequent on immersion in Morpeth Dock, Birkenhead, and there is insufficient evidence to say how or in what manner the said deceased got into the said Dock.’ Certificate received from Cecil Holden, Coroner for Birkenhead. Inquest held 5 March 1901. Widowed at 29, Elizabeth attempted to provide for her children (the oldest aged 9, the youngest just 7 months old) as a charwoman. Saddened by the plight of this family, I then found that my real grandfather was recorded as a girl living with his destitute mother and siblings in Atcham workhouse in Shropshire.