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Authors: Lynn Knight
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hand, a hewer. By 1901, he and Emily were living in the Derbyshire town of Eckington, having had as many houses as they had children, and in as many years, just about. Life looked set to be the same for Emily as for her own mother, who gave birth to eleven children, her youngest born when Emily was already a mother herself; at one point, mother and daughter were pregnant at the same time. Thomas was also one of eleven children, born to Irish parents living on the outskirts of Chesterfield.
In 1903, Emily was pregnant again, a pregnancy she did not survive. A fifth pregnancy in seven years was not that unusual fora working-class woman of her day, nor was death in childbirth: maternal mortality was a major cause of death among married women. In October of that year, at the age of twenty-seven, Emily haemorrhaged following her confinement. There is no record of what happened to the baby she was carrying.
The tragedy of Emilyâs short life was not quite over. The following day, Thomas went to register the death and, as is the custom, was required to state his own name along with hers and define his relationship to the deceased. There are two ways of interpreting what happened next. A sense of propriety, a need for truthfulness at the end; shock or exhaustion, or perhaps a combination of all these, made Thomas give her correct name: Emily Ball, and not the surname, âMartinâ, which she had given on recent documents and for the purpose of the census two years earlier. A less generousinterpretation is that by giving her correct name, Thomas not only told the truth but also distanced himself from further responsibility for their young children. This naming left him with a problem: how was he to account for his relationship with Emily? Faced with the recording authority, Thomas chose the term sometimes used to acknowledge a settled but unsanctioned relationship. And so the mother of his children, with whom he had lived for at least seven years and who, twenty-four hours earlier, had bled to death in childbirth, is defined on her death certificate as: âHousekeeperâ.
âMy mother died at thirty-eight. She left six of us. I was only six years old. She died with childbirth... There was no information at all on birth control. If it happened, which it did very, very often in my younger days, that a woman went into hospital for her confinement and the doctors said if there was a recurrence of pregnancy the woman would die, that woman was sent out without any information as to how to avoid that. The law forbade them to give information on birth controlâ¦â
â Elizabeth Dean, interviewed aged 101, in Angela Holdsworth,
Out of the Dollâs House: The Story of Women in the Twentieth Century
, 1988.
It was almost impossible (though not unheard of) for a man to bring up four daughters by himself. These were the days before welfare provision and Thomas had to work to survive. He had sisters who could have helped him, however, and I suspect that one of them did, because his eldest daughter was separated from the other three and disappears from this story. Not so Kitty (aged four), Margaret (three) and Annie (three months off her third birthday). For whatever reason, Thomas Martin could not or did not provide for his youngest girls.
These three little girls lost their mother in desperate circumstances (and may well have been in the house when Emily died). They were about to lose their father and their oldest sister too, who, despite her youth, had probably taken on the mantle of protector. Their births were registered as âMartinâ, but they now acquired their motherâs surname, Ball. However, Emily Ball was dead and could not help them. They were about to become nobodyâs children; children of the Poor Law Union.
A long straight path led from wrought-iron gates to the doorway of Chesterfieldâs Industrial School on Ashgate Road. A broadstraight line, from which there was no
In 1903, Emily was pregnant again, a pregnancy she did not survive. A fifth pregnancy in seven years was not that unusual fora working-class woman of her day, nor was death in childbirth: maternal mortality was a major cause of death among married women. In October of that year, at the age of twenty-seven, Emily haemorrhaged following her confinement. There is no record of what happened to the baby she was carrying.
The tragedy of Emilyâs short life was not quite over. The following day, Thomas went to register the death and, as is the custom, was required to state his own name along with hers and define his relationship to the deceased. There are two ways of interpreting what happened next. A sense of propriety, a need for truthfulness at the end; shock or exhaustion, or perhaps a combination of all these, made Thomas give her correct name: Emily Ball, and not the surname, âMartinâ, which she had given on recent documents and for the purpose of the census two years earlier. A less generousinterpretation is that by giving her correct name, Thomas not only told the truth but also distanced himself from further responsibility for their young children. This naming left him with a problem: how was he to account for his relationship with Emily? Faced with the recording authority, Thomas chose the term sometimes used to acknowledge a settled but unsanctioned relationship. And so the mother of his children, with whom he had lived for at least seven years and who, twenty-four hours earlier, had bled to death in childbirth, is defined on her death certificate as: âHousekeeperâ.
âMy mother died at thirty-eight. She left six of us. I was only six years old. She died with childbirth... There was no information at all on birth control. If it happened, which it did very, very often in my younger days, that a woman went into hospital for her confinement and the doctors said if there was a recurrence of pregnancy the woman would die, that woman was sent out without any information as to how to avoid that. The law forbade them to give information on birth controlâ¦â
â Elizabeth Dean, interviewed aged 101, in Angela Holdsworth,
Out of the Dollâs House: The Story of Women in the Twentieth Century
, 1988.
It was almost impossible (though not unheard of) for a man to bring up four daughters by himself. These were the days before welfare provision and Thomas had to work to survive. He had sisters who could have helped him, however, and I suspect that one of them did, because his eldest daughter was separated from the other three and disappears from this story. Not so Kitty (aged four), Margaret (three) and Annie (three months off her third birthday). For whatever reason, Thomas Martin could not or did not provide for his youngest girls.
These three little girls lost their mother in desperate circumstances (and may well have been in the house when Emily died). They were about to lose their father and their oldest sister too, who, despite her youth, had probably taken on the mantle of protector. Their births were registered as âMartinâ, but they now acquired their motherâs surname, Ball. However, Emily Ball was dead and could not help them. They were about to become nobodyâs children; children of the Poor Law Union.
A long straight path led from wrought-iron gates to the doorway of Chesterfieldâs Industrial School on Ashgate Road. A broadstraight line, from which there was no
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