Hannah Rolfe

Her parents Joseph and Amy Cox (née Merrit) were married on 7 August 1802 in St. Nicolas Church and Hannah was born a year later in 1803. 

In the 1815 census her family are living in West Mills.  Her younger brother James, aged 9, is recorded a Blue Boy. She also has a sister Ann, aged 7, and another brother Stephen aged 4.  Her father’s occupation is Brewer’s Man.

On 13 June 1824 at St. Nicolas Church she married John Rolfe.   He traded in the Market Place as a Grocer and Pork Butcher.  By 1842 they had ten children:

Amy Ann (b. 1826); Joseph (b.1827); Robert (b. 1829); William Henry (b. 1831); Stephen (b. 1833); John (b. 1834); Hannah (b. 1836); Martha (b. 1838); Frederick (b.1840) and Louisa (b. 1842).

The death of her husband John in 1843 left her with a large family to support and she continued the grocery business for the next 20 years or so with the help of her daughters Amy Ann and Louisa.  Sons Robert, William Henry, John and Frederick left Newbury to live in London and established their own trades as ironmongers, bakers, a butcher and a tin plateworker.  Her daughters Hannah and Martha also removed to London.  In 1864, Louisa married in Aston, Warwickshire, Charles Wivell, a groom and horse dealer born in Newbury.

By 1871, aged 68 years, she is living at No.7 Kimbers Almshouses. Her son Stephen and daughter-in-law Elizabeth are also recorded living with her. She continued to live in the Almshouses until her death on 12 January 1890, aged 85 years.

She was buried on 15 January 1890.  Her son Joseph Rolfe was later buried in the same plot on 3 August 1892.

Mrs. P. Code  P(F) 9,  Page 173

Sources: Her parents’ marriage; Toomer’s Census 1815, Page 103; Berkshire Marriages Index (Marriage date 13/6/1824); 1839 Robson’s Directory; 1841 to 1881 census;  John Rolfe’s Death Index 3Q 1843; Death Index  1Q

Author: Deirdre Duff
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