Logo for Robert Clarkson
Robert Clarkson was a humble cotton handloom weaver who lived his whole life in the tiny hamlet of Fulwood Row, Lancashire. His work was the original cottage industry, whereby raw material (cotton) was delivered to his door by agents who would purchase the finished product, woven cloth. The whole family was involved in the various steps in between, including spinning, carding and weaving. By the time he entered the industry as a child, it was on the wane. Piecework prices had dropped significantly due to mechanization of looms over the previous decades; and prices continued to drop during his lifetime. Robert would have supplemented his income with seasonal work on nearby farms. Despite the low income, Robert married twice, had a family of 15 children and lived into old age.
He was baptised at Fernyhalgh (near Fulwood Row) on 29 December 1809. Like generations of Clarksons before and after him, he was a Catholic. His parents (Thomas Clarkson and Ann Leeming) had married at Broughton three years earlier. His mother had been born at Chipping (10 miles away) in 1782.
Robert married Alice Singleton in St John's Church (Preston, Lancashire) on 18 July 1831. She would have been 17-years-old (or younger) and he was 21. It is possible that Alice was one of the two people of that name who were born at Chipping (his mother's birthplace) in 1814 and 1815 respectively. Their marriage was witnessed by Robert Towers and Isabella Clarkson (who may have been Robert's sister, sister-in-law or cousin).
The young couple soon had a large family, with three daughters coming in the first three years of marriage. When the 1841 census was recorded, they had added a son and another daughter; and a teenage William Clarkson was also living with them. There is no record of Robert having a brother named William. Did he have a son who was born before he married Alice?
After nineteen years of marriage, Alice gave birth to their ninth and last child in July 1850. The full list of their children was: Ellen 1832; Ann 1833; Elizabeth 1834; Thomas 1837; Mary 1839; Jane 1842; Thomas 1845-1845; Alice 1848-1849; and Robert 1850.
His wife Alice died on 9 July 1850 at Fulwood, aged 36 years, and was buried the next day. Her death certificate attributed her death to disease of the heart, surprising for a young woman. Perhaps her heart had been weakened by a childhood illness like rheumatic heart disease. It is notable also that her youngest son (Robert) was recorded on the March 1851 census as 8 months old. Alice must have died within days of giving birth to him.
Robert was now a widower with several small children, including a baby. Eleven months after Alice's death he married the 32-year-old spinster who had long lived next door, Ann Poulton. During the following 9 years they had six children: Isabella 1852; Thomas 1854; Alice 1855; John 1857; Elizabeth 1858; and James 1860. Robert was now father to a second young family while some of his older children had married and provided him with grandchildren.
It is strange that Robert used names for his children despite having living children with the same name. For example, 1837 Thomas was still living when 1845 Thomas and 1854 Thomas were baptised. Similarly, 1834 Elizabeth was still living when 1858 Elizabeth was named.
In 1854, his daughter Elizabeth Clarkson married John Poulton, who was a younger brother of Robert's second wife. The Clarkson and Poulton families were now tightly bound together, with Ann's mother Elizabeth Poulton (nee Green) still living next door. After she died in January 1855, the two extended families continued on in both houses.
Robert was subsequently recorded on the 1861 census as a 50-year-old cotton handloom weaver living at Fulwood Row with his second wife Ann and six children. The 1871 census recorded him as a 60-year-old labourer living at Fulwood Row with his wife Ann and four children. Both of these records say that Robert had originated in nearby Broughton, Lancashire.
Robert died in 1881, but not before he was widowed for a second time. He was recorded on the 1881 census as a 70-year-old widower working as a farm labourer in the household of 26-year-old Oliver Hothersall who was a farm servant at Crab Tree Farm in Fulwood. Hothersall had married Robert’s youngest daughter Alice four years earlier. Also in the household was Robert’s oldest son, Thomas Clarkson, who was described as a 42-year-old joiner and widower.
Robert died in that farmhouse on 9 October that year, aged 71. Unfortunately, his death certificate does not name his parents.