Grandad’s Mother-In-Law

Round about the time Grandad’s father was beating his mother, and then absconding with their few possessions, the woman who would one day become his mother-in-law was involved in a drama of her own.

Sarah Watson was not merely proud of her background, but a snob. The Watsons were gentry, owning land which was rich in coal. They had quarries too, the stone going to pave the streets of Westminster. Given the geography of the upper Whitworth valley, drift mines ran into the steep hillsides on its eastern side, with the quarries on the west. Between the two, the road ran in a more-or-less straight line northwards from Rochdale to Bacup. About halfway up the valley was the district of Facit, the subject of an old chestnut: Question - ‘When a man’s in trouble, why should he go up Whitworth Road?’ Answer – ‘Because it’s the best way to Facit.’ (Face it.)

In the centre of Facit is the Halfway House, an old coaching inn; and nearby was the magnificent mansion built by Thomas Watson. I always think of it as resembling the Bates house in the film ‘Psycho’ – dark, menacing, standing silhouetted against the moor. There was a substantial coach-house built as well, but it was a ‘folly’, though not intentionally. The driveway was too steep for the horse to manage with the carriage attached, or at least not with any degree of safety. So the horse and carriage were kept permanently in the stables of the Halfway House, (as was Thomas’s riding horse), and the family had to walk down the steep drive first, should they wish to go anywhere by coach.

The Watsons had come originally from the north-east, so it was a case of taking coal FROM Newcastle. They had acquired land, opened the mines and quarries, and prospered. Their first three sons were always given the names Thomas, John, and James. (The wealth of the family, and its prestige, lasted until the 1920s, when the then Thomas called his sons Thomas, Donald, and Norman. The family proceeded to lose everything, which will not surprise anyone who is superstitious).

My great-grandmother, Sarah Watson, was born to a life of privilege, living in the big house, with servants to make everything easy. She and her sister Angelina were kept at home, and under-educated, leaving them bored and restless. Meanwhile, their brothers went away to school. In this generation there were only two brothers living, Thomas and John. Numerous children had died at birth. There were health problems: T.B., or Consumption as it was called at the time, ran in the family. T.B. was unusual for the Lancashire valleys, where the dampness and humidity meant most people developed bronchitis at a young age, and that seemed to provide immunity against T.B., much as Cowpox does against Smallpox. But the family came from Newcastle, and had no immunity.

Life went on for Sarah in a predictable way: Millgate Baptist Church three times on Sunday; and every weekday the same, sitting doing embroidery, or a little painting in water-colours, or some desultory reading, followed by a walk with Angelina. This could have gone on indefinitely; but then the Literary and Scientific Society was begun in the area, and new possibilities presented themselves.

The Society held meetings each Wednesday evening in the Millgate Church hall. There would be a talk, with lantern slides, followed by tea, biscuits, and cake, and the opportunity to meet others, and to chat. Thomas allowed his daughters to attend, and it was at one such meeting that Sarah met the person she would marry. She noticed the young man staring at her; and, looking back at him, she liked what she saw. There were not many eligible young men of her class locally, and those that were she already knew. Here was someone she hadn’t seen before. She enlisted Angelina’s help in investigating who he was, and discovered his name was Elias Greenwood, recently moved to the village with his widowed mother. His occupation was unknown, but he was respectably dressed, with good quality boots, and a suit with a watch-chain. I can imagine him twirling his moustaches!

Sarah and Elias began a furtive and underhand courtship, aided and abetted by Angelina. When asked his profession, he said he had ‘private means’, and the girls didn’t enquire any further after that. Sarah never stopped to question why, if all was as it appeared, Elias did not approach her father in the ordinary way. Instead, they met ‘by chance’, when the two sisters were out walking, Sarah, stifled by the restrictions of her life, longed for adventure. She assumed from Elias’s manner and appearance that he was a gentleman.

Sarah must have seen herself as the heroine of one of the racier stories of Mrs. Henry Wood when Elias asked her to elope with him, facing and overwhelming terrible odds. Angelina egged her on - two teenage girls, with little education, and less common sense.

Elias planned everything carefully. He went to Rochdale and got a special licence. Then, returning to Facit, he and Sarah caught the horse-bus at different stops, so as not to be seen together until they were out of the village. The horse-bus terminated at the Spread Eagle Inn on Cheetham Street in Rochdale, and it was just a short walk from there to the Register office at Townhead. If Sarah had any second thoughts, she put them to one side.

The couple married, with two witnesses supplied by the Registrar, after which Elias suggested they go for a walk, as a ‘honeymoon’. So they walked along Bury Road until they reached the cemetery. Victorians were very fond of cemeteries, and the young couple was no exception. They began to stroll round its paths, admiring the statuary, and reading the verses engraved on the monuments. Sarah was only mildly uneasy when she realised they had strayed – as she thought - into an older, deserted, overgrown area. She was taken by surprise when Elias suddenly turned to her and threw her to the ground, hauling up her voluminous skirts and petticoats, and tearing the fabric of her pantaloons. She saw him looming over her, his face suffused and almost unrecognisable, as he grappled with the buttons of his trousers.

She felt a searing pain, and cried out. Elias covered her mouth. Her back was being driven hard against the gravestone underneath; she wanted to cry out, but couldn’t.

Afterwards, Elias got up, and turned his back on her, whilst she struggled to rise. She realised she was bleeding, and also that her clothes were torn and dirty. Her hair had come down. She tried to pull herself together, and straighten her clothes as best she could, despite the great sobs which she couldn’t stop.

When Elias spoke, it was to say, “We’d better go back now.”

Back! Sarah realised for the first time that this ‘adventure’ was over. Back, he’d said; but how could there be a going back? How could she face her father and mother ever again? She looked at Elias with revulsion.

They couldn’t just stay here, though. They set off on the long walk back to the Whitworth valley, and back to Facit. Face it! Sarah felt the irony of the supposed joke.

Every step, every movement, was agony, but somehow she found the strength to keep going. In her ignorance she thought she was going home to her parents, but as she and Elias neared the village, he spoke again.

“We’re going to my mother’s.”

“What about my parents?”

“We’ll cross that bridge later. You’re my wife now, and your place is with me, in my home.”

It seems ridiculous that Sarah had not even realised that marriage to Elias would entail giving up all she had ever known, things she had taken for granted until now. It came as a shock when she saw the house to which Elias was taking her. It was small, a terraced cottage. The front door opened straight into the living room. She followed Elias inside; and there was his mother, waiting, her arms folded across her chest. The older woman looked at Sarah with disdain, then turned to Elias.

“Did you do what I told you?” she asked.

“Yes, Mother.”

“Good.”

His mother addressed her for the first time. She said, “Now perhaps you’ll come down to our level, lady!”

Sarah looked at her, and then at Elias, appalled. ‘What have I done?’ she thought. ‘What have I done?’

Codicil

This is the story as Sarah told it, and how my mother, her granddaughter heard it, and told it to me. Is it true, in all particulars? Only those directly involved would have known, and they are long gone. What is fact is that Sarah’s parents never spoke to her again directly, and would not acknowledge her husband, even though they never knew the events I’ve related. All they knew was that their daughter had eloped and married without their consent – and married beneath her, too.

Sarah and Elias somehow seemed to find a way of getting past what had happened, and behaved in a civilised way to each other. They had three children – my grandmother Betsy, followed by James (Uncle Jim, whose funeral features in another of my stories) and Annie. The advancement Elias had presumably hoped for did not come, though Sarah’s father, despite ostracising her, built a house for them, and supplied them with free coal.

The children were a different matter. They were much loved by their maternal grandparents, who, like all Baptists, did not believe one is born in sin; one acquires one’s own as one goes along. (This is the reason infants are not christened, but dedicated in the Baptist Church. Baptism is something to be decided for oneself when one reaches ‘the age of discretion.’)

In later life, Sarah was widowed, and lived with Grandad and Grandma in Rochdale. Grandma had quite radical ideas for her time, and felt strongly that women should work. Her best friend, Polly Bonney, was a Suffragette. Sarah effectively brought up my mother and her elder sister. Goodness knows what she did, but somehow she instilled in them a rivalry and strong dislike for each other. Both thought the sun shone out of Sarah, and preferred her to their own mother. I think Sarah was an embittered woman, snobbish, and forever seeking recognition of her social superiority. I think the bones of her story are probably true – she eloped, and her husband’s mother said the words as recorded: but how much she was complicit, and how much was a cover story? I cannot be sure. What do you think?

Incidentally, Angelina, castigated for her part in the elopement, then ran away too. In later life she was landlady of a pub in Holland Street, Rochdale. As the Watsons, including Sarah, were teetotal, neither her parents, nor Sarah, would have anything to do with her.