17^th SEPTEMBER

ELIZABETH MANSELL

Today commemorates the birth of my paternal G-G-Aunt, Elizabeth MANSELL who was born in Ketley Shropshire on 17^th September 1837. Elizabeth was the second of the nine children born to my G-G grandparents William and Eliza (ARCHER) MANSELL

At the age of 20 Elizabeth married William CHALLINOR a puddler in the iron works in Ketley. Both made their mark & were married after Banns at the parish church in Wellington.

Over the next dozen years they had 6 children: Henry (1859), Mary (1861), William (1863), Thomas (1865), James (1867) and Anne (1869). All the sons followed their father into the iron works while Mary became a dressmaker and Anne married.  

Elizabeth’s husband William died in Ketley in July 1876. By the time the 1891 census was taken Elizabeth had moved north to Stockton-on-Tees and was living with son William, now 28 and daughter 21 year old Ann. Elizabeth also had a boarder, Shropshire born William Moore, who married daughter Ann later in 1891.They lived in Thorpe Street; a popular address for a number of Mansell families who had all made the move at various times between the 1861 and 1881 census. . I’m keen to see if I can determine who was the Mansell trail blazer in the shift from Shropshire to County Durham.

Elizabeth died in Stockton on 18/8/1899 – possibly at 10 Byron Street