Person:Frances Everitt (1)

Frances Everitt was baptised on 15th May 1791 at the parish church of St Mary in Hitchin. She was the eighth of nine children of a labourer named George Everitt and his wife Mary Cannon. Her father died when she was only about nine years old.

On 11th August 1811, at the age of 20, Frances was married at Hitchin to Edward Stokes. He was about eighteen months older than her, being 21 when they married. Just two months after their marriage they had a daughter, Ann, baptised on 2nd October 1811. She was followed less than two years later by a son, John, baptised on 11th July 1813. John's baptism records that the family lived at the hamlet of Walsworth and that Edward was a labourer.

Less than four months after John's baptism, Edward Stokes was buried at Hitchin on 3rd November 1813, aged just 24. Frances thus found herself a 22 year old widow with two children to support - Ann aged two and John aged about four months.

For the next six years or so, Frances managed to support the children and herself, perhaps with the help of family and friends. On 20th May 1820 she married again, at the age of 29, to a widower named Solomon Day, who was about 37. Solomon and Frances do not appear to have had any children together - and it was another short marriage for Frances. After just four years of marriage, Solomon was buried on 12th September 1824, aged 41 and described as having lived at Walsworth. Thus at the age of 33, Frances found herself a widow for a second time.

Just over two years later, on 24th September 1826, Frances married for a third time, aged 35 - this time to a bachelor named William Pestell, who was fourteen years her junior. Three months later, on 22nd December 1826, they had a daughter, Eleanor, baptised at Hitchin. It was over 13 years since Frances' previous child, John, had been born.

In 1830, Frances's mother died.

In 1831, both Frances's elder two children were married. Ann Stokes was married on 23rd July 1831 at Hitchin to an agricultural labourer named John Worbey. Their eldest child, John, Frances' first grandchild, was baptised less than three months later, on 13th October 1831. Four days before that, Frances' son John Stokes had married a Mary Ann Sharpe in the neighbouring parish of St Ippolyts. John and Mary would go on to have their eldest son, George Stokes, Frances' second grandchild, in March 1832, but he died as a baby and was buried on 1st April 1832. John and Mary went on to have another son, Edward Stokes, baptised on 21st April 1833 at St Ippolyts.

Meanwhile, Frances was herself expecting again. Her youngest daughter, Eliza Pestell, was baptised on 19th July 1833 at Hitchin. Frances was 42 and a grandmother to two surviving grandsons when Eliza was baptised. Eliza's two eldest half siblings were both married and in their early 20s, whilst her sister Eleanor was aged six.

Frances lived to see two more grandchildren - a granddaughter, Alice Worbey, born to her daughter Ann and baptised on 26th February 1834 at Hitchin, and another granddaughter, Emma Stokes, born to her son John and baptised on 18th October 1835 at St Ippolyts.

Frances was buried on 28th May 1836 at St Mary's in Hitchin, aged 45. She was again described as having lived at Walsworth. Her youngest daughter, Eliza, was only two years old when Frances died.

After Frances' death, her husband William and their daughters Ellen and Eliza moved to the neighbouring parish of Ickleford, where William remarried in 1838. Eliza died as a child of just five years old, whilst Ellen married at the age of 16, had a baby but died shortly after giving birth, still aged 16. William Pestell died in 1862, having outlived both his wives and both his children.

1. ↑ Church of England. Parish Registers of St Mary's Church, Hitchin. (Hertford: Hertfordshire Archives and Local Studies).

   Baptized 1791
   May 15 Frances Dau[ghte]r of George & Mary Everitt Lab[oure]r

   Whilst no named connection has been found, this baptism has been linked to the Frances Everitt who married Edward Stokes in 1811 on the basis that it is at about the right time to correspond with the age quoted when she died, and in the same parish in which she appears to have lived her whole adult life. No other Frances Everitt baptisms have been found locally around this time, nor has any evidence been found suggesting that the Frances Everitt baptised in 1791 died young or married anyone else.

2. ↑ Burials register, in Church of England. Parish Registers of St Mary's Church, Hitchin. (Hertford: Hertfordshire Archives and Local Studies).

   BURIALS in the Parish of Hitchin in the County of Hertford in the Year 1836
   No.	Name	Abode	When buried	Age	By whom the Ceremony was performed
   432	Frances wife of William Pestell	Walsworth	May 28	44 y[ea]rs	H. Wiles, Vicar