Parents:
Evan Mawdsley
(1845–1911)
Ellen Crook
(1866–1905)
Siblings:
Ellen Mawdsley
(c. 1892–?)
Henry Mawdsley
(c. 1893–?)
Clarissa Mawdsley
(c. 1896–?)
Christina Mawdsley
(c. 1897–?)
Half-siblings:
Ellen Mawdsley
(c. 1872–?)
Thomas Mawdsley
(1873–?)
Evan Mawdsley
(1877–?)
Tryphena Mawdsley
(1878–c. 1900)
Married ():
Samuel Speakman
(1898–?)
Children:
Joan Speakman
(1924–?)

Biography

Janet Hart Mawdsley was born on July 26, 1894 at the Fleece Hotel, 7 Market Street, Wigan. She was the daughter of proprietor Evan Mawdsley and his second wife Ellen Crook. The 1901 census recorded Janet, age 6, living with her family at the Fleece Hotel.

Janet’s mother died in 1905 and her father died in January 1911. Janet and her three siblings, Ellen, Henry and Clarissa, all between the ages of 13 and 18, were orphaned*. Although Evan had provided for his children in his will they would not inherit until they married or reached the age of 21 years. After the death of their parents the children apparently scattered.

At the time of the 1911 census, six months after her father’s death, Janet was enumerated working as a live-in servant for a family in Poulton-le-Fylde, Blackpool at the age of 16. At the time of the 1921 census Janet was reunited with her sisters Ellen and Clarissa operating a boarding house near the railway station in Blackpool. It is possible that one or more the women, who by then would have received their inheritance, were able to rent or purchase the boarding house.

In 1922 at the age of 28 Janet married Samuel Speakman, a butcher from Blackpool. On November 26, 1924 Janet gave birth to the couple’s only child, Joan.

The 1939 England and Wales Register records Samuel, Janet and Joan living at 159 Palatine Road in Blackpool. Samuel was working as a supervisor in a pork packing plant, Janet was a stay-at-home mom, and Joan was attending school.

At some point over the next several decades the Speakman family moved to Liverpool and settled at 182 Gateacre Park Drive.

Janet died in Liverpool on 9 January 1985 of complications from breast cancer. Her daughter Joan, by then going by her married name Joan Williams, registered the death. Samuel is listed on the death certificate as “retired” suggesting that he was still alive at the time of Joan’s death.

 

Source Documents

Details

  • Residence: 1901-03-31, Fleece Hotel, 7 Market Street, Wigan; Parent's home.

    Per 1901 Census.

Footnotes

*Janet’s half brother Evan was also orphaned although he would have been 33 years old at the time.