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m. 25 Nov 1845 Birkenhead, Cheshire, England
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Children
Following William's death, Ellen and her mother (Ellen Coghlan senior) were left bringing up six children aged from seven to new born. Not only had the children lost their father, but the family had also lost its main source of income. They would have been reliant on the money that Ellen senior earned as a midwife to support them. The family’s already unfortunate position took a turn for the worse in 1858. Less than four years after her husband’s death, Ellen died of typhus on 19th July 1858 at the age of 32, at home at 5 St Anne Street. This left Ellen Coghlan senior with the responsibility of bringing up her six orphaned Ralston grandchildren, who were aged between 11 and 3 when their mother died. Although the family was Catholic, the children attended the local Anglican school, attached to the church of St John the Evangelist. The school was run by the vicar of that church, Rev. Charles James Hamilton. He took an interest in the family’s plight and was reportedly very kind to them. Ellen senior (who was quite hazy about her age and could have been anywhere between her mid 70s and early 80s in 1858) clearly wasn’t able to look after all the children herself. She managed to place the two younger daughters, Ellen and Christiana at the Liverpool Orphan Asylum. Ellen was admitted aged 8 on 23rd August 1858, just a month after her mother’s death. Christiana was admitted a couple of months later on 15th October, aged 5. The orphanage was technically only for legitimate Anglican orphans – other orphans were sent to the considerably less comfortable institution of the workhouse. As it is on the workhouse admission records that Rev. Hamilton’s kindness to the family is recorded, maybe he used his influence to have the girls admitted despite being Catholic. The boys’ orphanage register for this period is lost, so it’s quite possible some or all of the boys may also have gone to the orphanage. The children’s stay in the orphanage was not permanent; they appear to have spent some time in the orphanage and some with their grandmother. All six children were at home with their grandmother for the night of the 1861 census. When the eldest girl, Catherine, married in 1862 she was only 15, although claimed on her marriage certificate to be 18. However, it was probably a great help to the family to have Catherine married, thus bringing her husband’s income to help the family, especially as Ellen Coghlan was getting older. On 1st March 1869, Ellen Coghlan was admitted to the Birkenhead Union Workhouse at Tranmere and died there eleven days later on the 12th, aged 82 according to her death certificate, although according to the ages she had quoted for herself in the censuses she could have been anything from 82 to 92. She had been responsible for her Ralston grandchildren for nearly eleven years. The 1871 census finds the Ralston children scattered: Catherine was married, Ellen was a servant, being a nurse at a big house in Lancashire, Christiana was back at Myrtle Street Orphanage in Liverpool, although now employed there as a cook rather than being an inmate, and Joseph Alexander was a grocer’s assistant in Manchester – he would later go on to run his own grocery in Manchester’s Moss Side. The other children, William and John, seemingly do not appear in any censuses after 1861, nor do they appear to have died in Britain. Maybe they had their father’s inclination to travel and emigrated. References
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