Sale of Household Effects

This poignant photo - according to the accompanying note in the album - shows the auction sale in 1910 of household effects belonging to Isabella Langstreth and her husband Edmund. It is outside number 8 on First Terrace which they had owned since 1905. Edmund had died in 1908, so maybe we can assume Isabella decided to give up the house. This was a summer residence, their main home was a rather grand property in Scotforth, Lancaster.

This is Isabella’s story. All the names and dates are correct, the interpretation is mine. She was born in 1846 at the Ship Inn Overton daughter of Thomas Wilson the Innkeeper and his first wife Ann. Shortly after they move to the Point to our Ship Inn. Sister Nancy is born there in 1848. When Isabella is 6 her mother dies, and it appears she is sent to live with the Wilsons, her father’s relatives at the Hall farm in Torrisholme (Near Lancaster) Nancy is sent to live with her mother’s family in Quernmore.

It does not seem that Isabella and Nancy return home when Thomas Wilson now 45 marries Margaret Pennington, 22 in 1858. (Margaret was born on the Point into a big family in what was known as ‘The house in the field’ – now 3A)

When Isabella first arrives at the farm, she must have met Edmund Langstreth who is working there as an agricultural labourer, he is 17 and Isabella, remember is only 6 or 7. Edmund was born in the parish of Halton the son of Margaret Langstreth, the father is not listed.

We don’t know how long they lived in the same house, perhaps 3 or 4 years, but by 1861 he is gone.

In the census of that year Isabella is 15 and still at the farm. Searching for her in the records we find that in 1871 she is a domestic servant in Preston and in 1881 - we are pleased to find - she is reunited with sister Nancy and running a grocery store in Bradford. Both are as yet unmarried.

At some point Edmund emigrates to New Zealand, it seems he becomes wealthy and marries. Perhaps on the death of his wife, he returns to England and to his mother in Bolton-le-sands.

Next, we hear Isabella is reunited with Edmund and in 1883 they marry in Bradford Cathedral, Isabella is now 37, Edmund 47. Nancy is there and signs the marriage register.

It does appear fanciful, but it seems Edmund went to Bradford to find the girl he knew from the Farm in Torrisholme almost 30 years earlier.

He takes her back to Bolton-le-sands where they have two children, Mary born 1885 and Edmund in 1888

In the 1890’s they are in Lancaster. Edmund is a well-to-do retired farmer and a minor civic figure; he was for a short time a town councillor sitting as a Liberal.

Perhaps Isabella and Edmund have visited the Point out of nostalgia or to seek out her stepmother’s relatives (who are numerous) but in 1905, they decide to buy the ‘End House’ (number 8).

Isabella has returned to live, perhaps for only during the summer, the place she left 50 years previously. Sound familiar?

In November 1916 during the First World War her son Edmund is killed in action in France he was 28. Isabella dies two years later, in 1918, 72 years old.