The Gentleman's Daughter (74 page)

Jane Pedder
(née Bowes) of Lancaster, Lancashire (d. 1790)

Jane Bowes was born into a Lancaster mercantile family. In June 1757 she married James Pedder, vicar of Churchtown, Garstang, Lancashire, the younger son of Richard Pedder, a substantial Preston merchant. Her brothers-in-law Edward and Thomas Pedder were also Preston merchants and were named in Elizabeth Parker Shackleton's manuscripts. Her husband Revd James Pedder died in 1772, where-upon Jane and her daughter Margaret removed to Bridge Lane, Lancaster. By the 1780s her son John Pedder was living in the household of Revd Starkie of Blackburn. By all appearances he was undergoing a legal apprenticeship; his mother certainly was relieved that his studies were ‘both instructive and pleasant without any danger attending’, unlike some of the young overseas merchants of her acquaintance. Members of the extended Pedder family also bought Gillows mahogany.

MS: fourteen letters: LRO, DDPd/17/1 (1786), Jane Pedder, London and Lancaster, to John Pedder, Blackburn. Journals: LRO, DDPd/25/16 (
c.
1786), Miss Margaret Pedder's ‘views of a journey to London and back’. See also LRO, DDPd/ 16/3 (1795), Furniture accounts of Revd John Pedder of Lancaster (MS span: 1786).

Ellen Stock
(née Weeton), of Upholland, Lancashire (1776–?1844) Ellen Weeton's social position was an ambiguous one, as she felt most sorely. Her mother was the daughter of a Preston butcher who had served as a lady's maid to the Houghtons of Walton Hall marrying eventually the captain of merchantman in the West Africa slave trade. (Her sisters married a Preston silk mercer and a Wigan solicitor.) Ellen's parents established themselves at Church Street, Lancaster, where Mrs Weeton took in lodgers to supplement her income while her husband was at sea. She bore four children, of whom only Nelly and her brother Tom survived. When Mr Weeton was killed at sea in 1782 the family was allegedly defrauded of his prize-money and forced to remove to Upholland, where they set up a school. Tom was educated at Mr Braithwaite's school nearby and was later apprenticed to the attorney Nicholas Grimshaw of Preston. Just qualified, he married the daughter of a Wigan factory owner. After the death of Mrs Weeton in 1797 Ellen ran the school singlehanded without a servant. Once the school was given up, she boarded with her brother and in mean lodgings in Liverpool. In 1809 she was employed as a governess by Edward Pedder of Doves Nest, Ambleside (another member of the mercantile family of Preston), and later by the Armitage
family at Milnsbridge, near Huddersfield. In 1814 she married the near-bankrupt manufacturer Aaron Stock of Wigan. Despite the birth of a beloved child, Mary, the marriage was an utter disaster, ending in a deed of separation in 1822. Thereafter, Ellen eked out an existence in lodgings, spending her time writing memoirs, taking modest walking holidays and struggling to maintain contact with her daughter.

Sources: E. Hall (ed.),
Mrs Weeton's Journal of Governess, 1807–1825
(1925), 2 vols, based on WRO, EHC 165, History of the Life of Nelly Stock/Occasional Reflections E. Stock (MS span: 1807–25).

See genealogical tree on following page.

THE MATERIAL USED IN CHAPTER TWO on Elizabeth Shackleton's social interactions is derived from the information provided in her five diaries, for the two years 1773 and 1780 (LRO, DDB/81/18–20 and DDB/81/36–7). The phrase ‘social interaction’ is used to denote the whole range of possible contacts with people resident outside her household, extending from the indirect, such as letters, messages or gifts, to the direct, like calls, meals or extended visits. The two chosen years are ones for which the density of information in the diaries is particularly high, but they are not in any strict sense representative. They fall, however, within two markedly different phases in Elizabeth Shackleton's later life: 1773, in the period before Thomas Parker's majority, and 1780, in the period after Elizabeth Shackleton had completed her move from Alkincoats to Pasture House.

All diary entries for these years which record interactions with individuals other than resident servants and resident kin were analysed. (Of the total 1,131 diary entries, 1,010 record Elizabeth Shackleton's personal involvement. The residual 121 entries describe those social encounters from which she was excluded, i.e. those involving only her sons and husband.) The interactions were entered into a computer database. Supplementary information on the people involved was then compiled from a range of local primary and secondary sources. The information was entered into ten fields as follows: (1) the date of the interaction, (2) the quarter during which the interaction took place, (3) the name/s of the people involved, (4) whether or not they were related to Elizabeth Shackleton, (5) their gender, (6) their occupational status, (7) their residence, (8) the type of activity, (9) the location of the interaction (if appropriate), (10) any miscellaneous information.

The most difficult problems of categorization arose with occupational status. The categories employed were landed gentry, professional, upper trade, lesser trade, tenant, farmer, servant, labourer and unknown. Not only is it difficult to track down occupational information on late eighteenth-century individuals, but it is also difficult to achieve clear distinctions, given the existence of multiple occupations and the imprecision with which terms like ‘gentleman’ and ‘yeoman’ were used. The main losers here were probably the categories upper and lesser
trades, because information on business activity was particularly difficult to secure. The chief beneficiary was probably the farming category: included in this category were all non-tenants for whom there is evidence of landholding, but no indication of involvement in trade or claim to gentility. Women were classified according to the status of their nearest male relative, usually that of her father before marriage and her husband after. Spinsters and widows often had to be labelled as status unknown, because although obviously wealthy and socially acceptable, they did not inhabit a recognized gentry seat and the source of their income is unknown.

The total number of interactions in the two years was 1,011, but it should be borne in mind that each recorded interaction could involve more than one type of activity and more than one individual. A letter might accompany a gift; several guests from a variety of occupational backgrounds might be invited to a dinner. Nevertheless, in most cases the results of analysis of the database are expressed as percentages of a figure for the number of interactions. This is because the question which has been asked of the database is what proportion of interactions involved certain categories of people, or certain categories of activity.

Basic genealogical data has been gleaned from Spencer,
Parochial Chapelry of Colne; Marriages from 1654–1754
, and Spencer,
Parochial Chapelry of Colne; Register of Baptisms and Burials,
1774–89. Occupational data is recorded in Spencer,
Parochial Chapelry of Colne; Baptism Register, 1790–1812.
Additional information is in PRO, 11/wills and BIHR, wills.

A Letters sent or received by Elizabeth Shackleton when attempting to procure servants for Alkincoats and Pasture House

B Letters Elizabeth Shackleton sent to or received from other employers seeking servants

C Servants seeking character references