Great Great Grandmother Bessie Staddon Edworthy (nee Nott)

My Great Great Grandmother Bessie (1859 - 1919) was a housewife and mother of six.

Bessie Staddon Nott was born around 1859 in Bampton, Devon, to William Nott (?), an agricultural labourer, and Grace Nott (nee Cobley) (about 31), a wool weaver.

Bessie was baptised on 18th March 1860 in Witheridge, Devon.

Bessie was the sixth of nine children (four sons and five daughters):

• William 1850 -
• John  1853 -
• Frederick  1854 -
• Mary Emma  1856 -
• Eliza Lydia  1857 -
• Bessie Staddon  1859 -
• Walter  1861 -
• Jessie Rose  1864 -
• Agnes  1868 -

Bessie grew up in Morchard Bishop, Devon.

1861 Census:

In the 1860s, a young Bessie and her family had moved from Oldborough to Southcott Cottage, also in Morchard Bishop. 1871 Census:

On 21st May 1877, Bessie (19) married William Edworthy (25), a carrier, in her native Morchard Bishop. The  young couple set up home in William's adoptive Exeter.

Photograph of Bessie as a young woman, c 1880

Bessie and William had six children (four daughters and two sons):

• Edith Florence Jessie  1878 - 1895 (16)
• William Gilbert John  1880 - 1949 (69)
• Beatrice May 1882 - 1969 (86 or 87)
• Cora Agnes  1886 - 1907 (21)
• Frederick 'Fred' Cecil  1888 - 1975 (87)
• Winifred Violet  1895 - 1982 (87)

Alas two of their children passed away young: Edith, aged sixteen, 1895, when Bessie was about thirty-six; and Cora, aged twenty-one, in 1908, when Bessie was about forty-nine.

In 1881, Bessie, William and their eldest son could be found living at 11 Follett's Buildings, St Mary Major, Exeter:

Follett's Buildings had been built only seven years earlier in 1874, when an improvement scheme headed by Exeter's mayor Charles Follett had seen their construction. With Exeter's recent cholera outbreaks in mind, Follett oversaw the building of these new tenements of between two and four rooms, with each tenement having a larder, scullery, water supply, coal cellar and water closet!

Later photograph of Follett's Buildings

Where was Bessie's eldest child and daughter Edith, who would have been two or three years old at the time of the 1881 census? Was wasn't she at home with her parents? On said census, she is listed as a visitor at Bessie's former home of Southcott Cottage, Morchard Bishop, staying with Bessie's recently widowed mother Grace and Bessie's younger sister Jessie, a milliner. One of Edith's middle names was Jessie. I wonder if Bessie named her first daughter for her younger sister.

By the time of Bessie's second daughter Cora's birth in 1886, Bessie, aged about twenty-seven, and her family had moved from Follett's Buildings to Hoopern Street, also in Exeter. There Cora was privately baptised on the day of her birth - a practice often done if the child was not expected to live long. Possibly due to complications at her birth, Cora retained only the abilities of a very young infant. She was unable to talk, and had to be washed, dressed, fed etc by others. Bessie and William tried to care for Cora at home, but struggled. Cora was initially sent to Earlswood Asylum in Surrey, but in 1904 Bessie and William got her back closer to her home in Exeter and she spent the remained of her short life in Digby Hospital (Exeter City Asylum). Cora passed away from phthisis (pulmonary tuberculosis or a similar progressive wasting disease), aged twenty-one, on 29th December 1907.

The family were still living at Hoopern Street in 1888, when Fred was baptised, but sometime in the early 1890s, they moved to 64 Howell Road, near the railway station. On their youngest daughter's Winifred's 1895 baptism record, William's occupation is listed as a railway guard. Previously William had been a carman, and many carmen were employed by the railway for local deliveries and collections of goods and parcels. Bessie and William's sons would both later also work for the railway.

In Apr/May/Jun 1890, when Bessie was about thirty-one, her mother Grace passed away, aged about sixty-four, in the district of Crediton.

By 1901, Bessie and her family had moved down the road from 64 to 54 Howell Road:

Photograph of Bessie in middle age, c 1900

Bessie's husband William was seemingly no longer a railway guard by 1901, and was back working  with horses, as it seems he did for most of his working life. It is nice to picture William with his horse and cart.

When Bessie was about fifty-one, William passed away, aged about fifty-nine, in January 1911, in Exeter. William and their daughters Edith and Cora was buried at Exeter Higher Cemetery in Heavitree, Exeter, but being poor their graves are alas unmarked. After William's death, their son Fred, aged twenty-two, became the breadwinner and supported his widowed mother Bessie and youngest sister Winifred.

By 1911, the family had moved from Howell Road to Park Road, which is just around the corner from Exeter Higher Cemetery.

1911 Census:

Bessie's eldest son William served in the First World War as a private in the Devonshire Regiment from 1916. He was transferred the Labour Corps in 1917. Thankfully he survived the war.

In seems sometime in the 1910s, Bessie and her youngest daughter Winifred moved from Exeter to 4 Morley Cottages, Paignton, to live with her older daughter Beatrice.

On 3rd April 1919, Bessie passed away, aged about sixty, in the district of Totnes.