Wigan Album

Doing my family history & using Lancashire Parish Clerks Online I have noticed the infant mortality rates. Only this week I found that a children born in my family history died before their 2nd birthday. One child, Mary, 1 year old was not killed by disease but was '' killed by a cart wheel ''. The burial entries make sober reading.

My maternal great grandparents married in 1873 at St Thomas Church, Wigan. In the 1881 Census I found them in Hilton’s Yard, off Queen Street but with no children. Little did I know they had already lost four children. In total they had 14 children, 6 survived into adulthood, the rest died aged 1 or less, a commentary I’m sure, to some extent, on the living conditions in Victorian England and Wigan in particular.