"I was a little doffer . . . When the frames are full, [doffers] have to stop the frames, and take the flyers off, and take the full bobbins off, and carry them to the roller; and then put empty ones on, and set the frame going again . . . there are so many frames, and they run so quick . . ."
- Elizabeth Bentley, a worker in Busk's flax mill in Leeds, since the age of six. Working from six in the morning until seven at night. When the mills were busy, working from five in the morning until nine at night.
Jane Bowes was born in Leeds in 1838, and at the age of 13 was working as a doffer, in the mills in Leeds.
The account above comes from a report from the early 1830s. When Jane was working as a doffer, a couple of decades later, perhaps conditions were a little better - I think we'd all hope they were.
Following this line, back through my female ancestry, has been one of the most rewarding parts of my family history research. I've just received the birth certificate for Jane Bowes, who was born just after the start of civil registration. This is probably as far back as I can go with certainty, following the female line. But I want to mention that Jane Bowes's mother, Bella Bowes, was formerly Isabella Butterfield, as the certificate confirms. Other records show that Isabella Butterfield was born in 1806, in Clapham, Westmoreland. That's 200 years back - 202, to be precise, at the time of writing - and I'm really very chuffed to have traced my female lines back a couple of centuries, and particularly to a lady with the truly cheery and lovely name of Isabella Butterfield.
Back though to 1838, leaving any Butterfields, and indeed any fields. Jane Bowes was born at 20 St Peter's Street, Leeds, on 20 March 1838. Her father was John Bowes. The birth certificate gives his occupation as Clockmaker, though only a few years after this, at the time of the 1841 census, he's changed occupation - he's a Flax dresser - and the family have moved to a different address in Leeds. A clockmaker sounds like a fairly nice, relaxed, genteel kind of occupation, but everything onwards from that appears to have been factory work.
At the time of the 1841 census, Jane is too young to work, as are her siblings. But by 1851, they're all in the factories. When I first saw this census return, I only noticed it was one of those rather faded pages that are hard to read, and I kept a copy of it for future reference. I couldn't make out much. When I looked at it again, recently, Jane's occupation jumped out at me from the previously mysterious scribble. She was a Doffer. I'd just read about another girl who worked as a doffer, in a factory in Leeds. The extract is included at the top of this page.
Jane married James Howarth, in Rochdale, in 1856. They appear together on only one census, in 1861, when they're in Wortley, Leeds. Jane and her family then seem to have been moving around, between Leeds and Rochdale mainly, though one of their sons was born in Rotherham.
The 1871 census finds her back with her parents, in Rochdale, which tied it all together. She's married, the census states, though James isn't part of the household. She's listed here again with an occupation: Cotton winder. One of her daughters, Mary, is also a Cotton winder. And the five year old daughter Jane, who my mum later knows as Granny Higgie, can also look forward to being a Cotton winder, when she's old enough.
The 1881 census shows Jane and James's children living with their aunt and uncle - Jane's sister Helena and her husband Henry (Shepherd). I then found a likely deaths index entry for Jane, in 1876.
The death certificate shows that Jane Howarth (formerly Bowes) died on 28 January 1876, in the Wardleworth district of Rochdale, aged 37. The death was registered by Jane's sister Helena Shepherd, of 3 Garden Lane, Rochdale, who was in attendance.
The cause of death reads "Childbirth Haemorrhage". The following line, rather faded, appears to say "5 hours".