Introduction
In March 1851, Maria Fox, aged 19, was a milliner living at the Cross, Hardington, with her sister, Ann, in the household of their widowed aunt, Martha Mitchell. This is the story of how they arrived at this point and what subsequently happened to them. It includes many instances of family cooperation in the face of adversity.
Birth
Maria was born at Minterne Magna in about 1832, the second child of eight children born to Frederick and Dinah Fox. Her father, Frederick, was a carpenter.
Family crisis
When Maria was about fifteen, the family suffered two tragedies. On 28 February 1847, her younger brother, Edwin, who was just two years old, was fatally burned when his clothes caught fire.[1] Three months later, on 21 May 1847, Maria’s father, Frederick, died of tuberculosis at the age of 48.[2]
The loss of the family’s main breadwinner put them at risk of being sent to the Cerne Abbas workhouse. However, they were spared from this fate due to the support of other family members. Maria and her younger sister Ann went to stay with their father’s sister, Martha Mitchell, at Hardington. Their sister, Susan, probably did the same, becoming a house servant to a Yeovil doctor by March 1851. Their brother, William, became a baker, employed by Maria’s niece and stepdaughter, Ellen Templeman, at West Coker.[3] This left three siblings at home in the care of their mother: Martha Jane, John and James.
Life at Hardington
Martha Mitchell was a bonnet maker who lived near Hardington Church. She had moved to Hardington from West Coker after her husband, George, died on 18 February 1850.[4] Martha taught her two nieces, Maria and Ann, hat-making and dressmaking.
Wincanton
In about 1856, Martha’s son, Simeon, became a solicitor’s clerk at Wincanton, at which point Martha probably moved in with him and his family in Church Street. This connection to Wincanton would influence the lives of Maria, Ann and their sister, Martha Jane.
Marriage
On 19 November 1860, Maria married Henry Hutchings, a fishmonger of Wincanton, at St John’s church, Yeovil. At the time of her marriage, Maria was a dressmaker, living in South Street, Yeovil. The witnesses who signed the marriage register were Ann and Robert Bartlett, Susan’s husband.
Married life at Wincanton
Henry and Maria settled in South Street, Wincanton, where Ann lived with them. Henry gave up fishmongering to became a footman. Their first child, Blanche, was born on 30 October 1861.
Maria and Ann’s sister, Martha Jane, also moved to Wincanton and on 2 October 1862, she married William Mullins Hutchings, a house painter.[5] Thomas Templeman of West Coker was one of the witnesses.
Death
By January 1865, Henry and his family had moved to Bayford Hill Cottage. There, on 16 January 1865, Maria gave birth to a daughter, Alice Maria.[6] Unfortunately, the pregnancy undermined Maria’s health, and she died on 19 January 1865 from obstruction of the bowels at the age of 32.[7] Alice was baptised at Wincanton Church on 23 January 1865, and Maria was buried the following day. Alice died shortly afterwards and was buried on 3 February.
Blanche’s later life
Henry remarried in 1869 and moved to Southampton with his new wife and Blanche. By April 1881, Blanche was a general servant in a farmhouse at Tingewick, Buckinghamshire. In 1888, she married Frederick Lovenden Ball, a waiter and gardener, at Oxford. She died at Coventry in 1943 at the age of 81.
The later life of Maria’s sister, Ann Fox
On 10 December 1870, Ann married Tom Bollen, a fireman for the London and South Western Railway. The couple lived in Yeovil, where Ann died in March 1909 at the age of 71.
References
[1] Death certificate of Edwin Fox,
[2] Death certificate of Frederick Fox.
[3] Martha Fox married George Mitchell at Beaminster Church on 29 June 1823. He was previously married to Martha’s sister, Maria, who died at Minterne Magna in July 1817. Ellen was the daughter of George and Maria.
[4] West Coker burial register.
[5] William Mullins Hutchings was probably a distant relative of Henry Hutchings.
[6] Western Gazette, 4 February 1865, p.6.
[7] Western Gazette, 4 February 1865, p.6; death certificate of Maria Hutchings.
