FANNY MOOK 1871 - 1931

Robert Midgley’s spouse was the daughter of Richard and Mary Mook, who had married on 30 July 1859 at West Lutton. This wedding took place only one week before John and Ann Midgley married in a neighbouring village !  The two sets of parents almost certainly new each other in the mid-1860’s since both Thomas and Ellen Mook were born in Duggleby. Around 1866 the Mook family moved to Langton and Fanny was born there in 1871. She spent her early years at Grandstand farm. At this time Langton was a small village with 44 houses and around 240 inhabitants.

In the early 1880’s the Mook family moved close to Castle Howard. It may be that Richard Mook saved enough money to lease a small farm, progressing from hind at Grandstand to a tenant farmer at Bulmer Crofts mainly using family labour.  On his death, his estate was worth £ 706 19s 6d (at a time when farm labourers were paid around 17s 6d. a week).

Both Fanny’s parents died when she was eigtheen, her mother on 30 July 1889 and her father on 20 October. They were buried in Welburn churchyard. However, Bulmer cottage, Welburn, remained the Mook family home. In 1891 unmarried brother Thomas (aged 24) was cited as a ‘farmer’, ‘employer’, and ‘head’ of a household of 6 brothers and sisters. Also living at home, and providing help with the farmwork and domestic chores, were William (23), Catherine (21), John (16), Elizabeth (14) and Emily (9). By this time Fanny and her sister Ellen had returned to Langton as domestic servants for farmer Coulson (a widower) and his family.

Fanny Mook may well have met Robert around 1890-1 while she was working at East Farm, Langton. At this time one of Robert Midgley’s brothers, Wilson (aged 15), was a farm servant at nearby Grandstand farm, Langton.  The hind at Grandstand was now John Grice, and his wife, Maria (aged 30), was Fanny’s married sister!  It seems likely that Fanny and Ellen would have been  frequent visitors to Grandstand, and possible that Robert visited his younger brother there too.