The Spinster

“Widows seemed to attract suspicion (from other women), fascination (from men) and pity (from everyone) in about equal quantities, depending on their age, financial prospects and number of children. Spinsters, on the other hand, simply attracted pity mixed with a little contempt.”

– Margaret Ward, The Female Line

As I explored the maternal lines of my family history, searching for a compelling subject for my writing, I noticed a particular group of relatives who seemed to vanish into the shadows: the unmarried women. Digging a little deeper, I found that these women were also largely absent from local historical books/accounts. The few mentions I did uncover echoed the very sentiments of the above quote – that these lives were largely overlooked.

This mystery ignited my curiosity, prompting me to focus on two such women from my own tree: Elizabeth Taylor, the daughter of a prominent landlord and gentleman from Longton, and her niece, Mary Dinah Taylor.

Who were these female relations that remained solitary characters at a time when society was not set up or ready for independent women and stigma was more likely than admiration? Was it that Elizabeth and Mary were required to stay at home as help, or perhaps they were holding out for the perfect suitor, and he just didn’t come along, or was it that they were simply not interested in marriage or motherhood? I set out to explore the two women’s lives in more detail, hoping to find answers to these questions whilst also aiming to extinguish the stereotype of the lonely, pitied spinster.  

‘Gone forever is the helpless woman in a world of endless opportunity for energy and wit’.
_{Ignatius Phayre}

_{Sources and recommended further reading}

• _Ancestry
• _{Find my past}
• _{The Genealogist}
• _{Lancashire Archives}
• _{General Record Office}
• _{https://victorian-era.org/duties-victorian-dairy-maid.html}
• _{Death in the Victorian family, By Pat Jelland}
• _{Female Occupations: Women’s employment from 1840-1950, by Margaret Ward.}
• _{Marriage in Victorian England – https://vc.bridgew.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1420&context=honors_proj}
• _{A History of Preston – David Hunt}
• _{The Female Line – Margaret Ward}
• _{Tracing your female ancestors –  Adèle Emm}
• _{Longton in the Nineteenth Century – Marjorie Searson}