Whatever Happened to Jane? Part One of a Two Part Story

Sometimes the most colourful characters in our family history research reveal themselves when searching outside the direct line ancestors . . . and so it is with this "off shoot" family in the Baron family story.

James Baron's Will (see "James Baron's Will Revealed", the blog from January 2015) was a goldmine of family detail and one of details that he shared related to his daughter Jane Baron  b 9 June 1794 in Wigan. Jane had been born 13 months before John Baron who is the New Zealand Barons direct line ancestor and little is known about her early life. I was keen to learn more about her and who she married and if there were any possible living relations from her line. James Baron's will, written and signed on the 8 March 1830, made a few mentions of his daughter Jane that led me to believe that despite her being well on the way towards celebrating her 36th birthday at the time he penned his will, that she was unmarried at this time. Despite extensive searching for a marriage I was really just floundering around. A better line of enquiry was to locate the death information for Jane and John's mother Ellen (nee Jackson) which I thought might be found in or around Wigan where James had died and where one could reasonably assume that she might stay living after James' death. 

A good place to start is often in historical newspapers and the British Newspaper Archive has a search engine that can search across the country rather than be misled by the researcher's preconceived notions! Straight away I did score a hit with the following entry recorded in the Huntingdon, Bedford and Peterborough Gazette of 3 August 1833.:

The obvious next step was to find out who this new character, Mrs Barton, was and if this Mrs Baron was, in fact, OUR Mrs Baron, so a search of the burial records for Lancashire, where the Barons were originally from, revealed that an Ellen Baron who had been living in Alconbury, Huntingdonshire was buried in Standish aged 68 years. We had the right mother for Mrs Barton so now just needed to work on revealing who Mrs Barton was. . . 

The Church of England has excellent records that hold really good detail about individuals who have served in the Church. The following clip clarifies that one Robinson Shuttleworth BARTON was the Vicar at Alconbury cum Weston at the time that Ellen Baron died at the Vicarage there. So, it would seem that Jane Baron, daughter of James and Ellen Baron, sister of John Baron married Robinson Shuttleworth Barton some time between the writing of her father's will and the death of her mother, and was our Mrs Barton from her mother's death announcement from the newspaper.

From here the detail of the marriage is easy to locate and paints a confusing picture that pulls up further questions about what was happening for Jane prior to the marriage. The bare bones of the story are that in 1830, after her father James wrote his Will but before he died on January 3, 1831, Jane was married to the Rev Robinson Barton at the parish church in Flixton, Lancashire. The licence issued indicates that Jane Baron resided in the Parish of Flixton at the time of her marriage and her husband to be gave the Parish of Alconbury as his own Parish. What was Jane doing in Flixton at the time of her marriage? Why did James not change his will to reflect his only daughter's new status? Jane was 36 and Robinson 44, on the date of the marriage: 16 August 1830. The two witnesses were R. Wright and Maria Stevenson. Just 41/2 months later Jane's father was dead and his will provided that "one other of his best bedsteads and one other of his best beds, together with all necessary and suitable bedding" was provided for Jane in his last will and testament. One can only wonder if this is the bed that she and her new husband used in the vicarage in Alconbury, or perhaps his wife died in,  just a bare 21/2 years later. 

What the record does say is that at the time of her mother's death, on 24 July 1833 Jane had given birth to one daughter - Anne Jane Barton b 25 May 1831 and was five months pregnant with the pregnancy that became Sarah Parr Barton b 11 November 1833. The death of her mother and the removal of her body for burial back in Standish on 3 August 1833, ten days after the death, must have been a time of great stress for Jane, for she was now 38 years old with a 15 month old child to care for and a new baby on the way. The cause of Ellen's death is unknown at this time but that, too may have been a cause of some stress for Jane if the illness was something that could have been contracted by her young daughter.

Jane and Robinson had two further babies born to them, this time both boys. James was born in 1835 on August 22 and Henry was born in their new parish of Heysham on 28 October 1839. By the time this last child was born Jane was now 45 years of age which even today is relatively old to be giving birth. It is worthy of comment that in a document dated 7 September 1836, when their children would have been 5, almost 3 and just turned 1, the Bishop of Lincoln licensed Robinson Shuttleworth Barton to be absent from his "benefice" until 31 December 1838 on account "of the actual illness of your wife and children". It is possible that the length of time between the births of James and Henry was due to this ill health, but it is also open to conjecture that Jane had suffered a miscarriage between these last two children. Of this the record tells us nothing at all. What we do know is that when she was 45 years old Jane gave birth to her last child after the family moved to the new parish of Heysham, Lancashire where Robinson Barton became Rector and the family lived in the Rectory.

Once they arrive in Heysham the story of Jane and her husband Robinson Shuttleworth Barton becomes truly fascinating, and a little sad but that will have to be a story for another time.