John Brooks married Isabella Cartmell, a woman eight years his senior, November 27th 1881 at Holy Trinity Church in Burnley (please see the Dewhurst-Driver page for a picture of this church). I have been surprised at how often my male ancestors married women who were older than them - perhaps this was not uncommon in Victorian times.

Marriage Certificate for John Brooks and Isabella Cartmell

The couple eventually settled at 110 Piccadilly Road, Burnley, which was the same street where I lived with my family when we moved from Manchester. I inherited a small, battered book called the "History of England", published in 1830, which begins, "Our present Majesty, King George the Fourth....."! On the inside cover John Brooks had written his name and 110 Piccadilly Road.

Isabella was born in Preston, Lancashire to Richard Cartmell and his wife Isabella. Richard Cartmell was a Master Carpenter/Joiner and was born in Newburgh, Lancashire in 1799. Newburgh was a hamlet within Lathom, Lancashire, which in turn was part of the Parish of Ormskirk. I haven't been able to find any church records of Richard Cartmell, but I think he would have been christened in St. John's Church in Lathom.

Isabella was born in Ambleside, Westmoreland around 1806. There are several conflicting years given for her birth year in the various Census reports, ranging from 1806 to 1816. Her age was reported as being 82 on her death certificate in 1888, which I think would be correct. Her eldest daughter, Ellen, was born in 1829, which, if Isabella had been born 1816 would have meant she was aged 13 when she married and became a mother!

Isabella Cartmell - Death Certificate

I haven't been able to find any marriage records for Richard and Isabella Cartmell, so I wasn't able to find Isabella's maiden name for a long time. I also couldn't find the reference numbers for any of her children's birth certificates, although their birth's are entered in the St. John's Church, Preston records. But then I went to the LDS Family History Centre here in London, and went through the microfilms of Births in the UK and found the reference numbers of their eldest daughter, Agnes. On Agnes' birth certificate it said that her mother was Isabella, "late Atkinson". This was very frustrating, because it means that Isabella had married before and she was a widow when she married Richard Cartmell - but usually they report the maiden name of the mother as "formerly Smith" or whatever, but in this case there was nothing. After lots of fruitless searching for her earlier marriage, I began to think something was not quite right. Ambleside had a very small population in the early 1800s and I searched the IGI Batch Number for Ambleside and found that the only Isabella born there in that time period was Isabella Atkinson. I now think this was my Isabella and she hadn't been married before and it was just a mistake on Agnes' birth certificate.

The parents of this Isabella Atkinson were Thomas and Mary Atkinson and more information can be found about them on the Atkinson page.

There are some other paintings of mid-19th Century Preston by E. Beattie at the following links:

Preston Market Place 1840

The Shambles, Preston 1848

Richard and Isabella had at least seven children. Ellen, born in 1829, Jane in 1838, Agnes in 1839, Richard in 1843, another Agnes in 1847 (the elder Agnes died in the last months of of 1846 at the age of seven), Elizabeth was born in 1849, and Isabella in 1852. Their mother, Isabella had an elder sister called Agnes (Atkinson) and I think she must really have loved her and wanted to carry on that name within the family. Their son Richard died in 1852, aged nine. It must have been very hard to lose their only son. I'm not sure why there was such a long gap between the births of their first child, Ellen in 1829, and the second, Jane, in 1838. It's possible Richard Cartmell was married before and Ellen was his child from a previous marriage, or that they had other children in between who died in infancy.

The family lived at 9 Albert Street, Preston for quite a long time, as reported in:

Richard and Isabella Cartmell - 1851 Census**

Richard and Isabella Cartmell - 1861 Census**

Richard and Isabella Cartmell - 1871 Census**

By 1881, Richard Cartmell had died and Isabella had moved to 35 Duckett Terrace, in the Habergham Eaves district of Burnley with her daughter, Isabella. As the younger Isabella was a cotton weaver, presumably she moved to Burnley because there was more work there in the burgeoning cotton industry. Later that year, Isabella married John Brooks and in 1888 their address was 66 Coal Clough Lane, Burnley. This is another family coincidence, because after my father retired, he and my mother moved from Piccadilly Road to 266 Coal Clough Lane.

** Used with the permission of Ancestry.com

*Reprinted by permission. Copyright (c) 1999 by Intellectual Reserve, Inc.