Logo for Elizabeth Green
Elizabeth Green was a weaver and small-time farmer who raised a large family in rural Lancashire. All we know about her early life is that she was born at Myerscough (Lancashire) around 1787.
She married John Robert Poulton at Broughton on 26 October 1807. He was a 22-year-old cotton handloom weaver from the nearby Haighton district. Their first child was baptised Margaret in the church at Fernyhalgh (where her father had been baptised 23 years earlier) on 1 August 1808. Ten more children were baptised followed there over the next 22 years but the twelfth child was baptised at Broughton.
At some stage the family moved to nearby Fulwood Row where it remained for decades. This move may have occurred early in the marriage because Fulwood Row is near Fernyhalgh where most of the children were baptised. Their children were: Margaret 1808; John 1810 (who must have died before 1830); Elizabeth 1811; Helen 1814; Mary 1816; Ann 1818; Dorothy 1821; Thomas 1823; Isabella 1825; Hannah 1827; John 1830; and William 1833.
Elizabeth's husband died (aged 49) soon after the birth of their youngest child William. Elizabeth, with the help of her older children, continued on with the family weaving business while raising the younger ones. In time Elizabeth also took on the running of a small farm of 3 acres.
Elizabeth's next-door neighbour at Fulwood Row was Robert Clarkson who was 22 years younger. His wife Alice Singleton died in 1850 leaving him with several young children. In June 1851 he married Elizabeth's daughter, Ann. They continued to live next door and produced six grandchildren for Elizabeth.
Four years later Elizabeth's son John married another of Robert Clarkson's children, Elizabeth. The two families were tightly bound together.
Elizabeth was now in her late sixties and was troubled by bronchitis. She died from this infection on 30 January 1855 (aged 68) and was buried at Broughton.