Person:Susan Moles (1)

Susan Moles was baptised on 14th May 1786 at Stotfold in Bedfordshire, daughter of Mary Moles, formerly Langham, and her husband Thomas Moles, a labourer. When Susan was five years old her mother died. Two years later, her father married again to a Mary Horsley, who thus became Susan's stepmother. Mary died in 1800, when Susan was 14.

As an adult, Susan left Stotfold and went to live in Norton, the parish immediately south of Stotfold. Her half-sister Ann (from her father's second marriage) also moved to Norton. When Ann married there in 1815, Susan was one of the witnesses to the marriage. Susan married at Norton the following year, on 18th May 1816, when she was 30 years old. Her husband was George Cox, a labourer.

Susan and George had seven children baptised at Norton between 1816 and 1830. George died aged 34 in 1830, about the same time as his youngest child was born - George was buried twelve days before his youngest son's baptism. After George's death, Susan was left with five surviving children to look after, although the youngest died a year after George's death.

Some time before 1835, Susan's now twice-widowed father, Thomas Moles, came to live with her at Norton. It is not clear whether he came to live with her before or after George's death. Thomas's will refers to furniture, a clock and other effects which belonged to him but were in his daughter Susan's house. Thomas later went to live in the house of the Reverend Wollaston Pym at nearby Radwell, where he wrote his will in 1835, but returned to Norton, presumably to live with Susan, before his death in 1838 in Norton, aged 86.

Later that year, Susan remarried. Her second husband was an agricultural labourer named Izzard Bray. Like Susan, he had been born at Stotfold but had spent most of his adult life living in Norton. Following his first wife's death in 1837 he had moved to the nearby parish of Weston, a couple of miles to the south, and Susan and Izzard married there and settled there after their marriage. However, Susan died less than eight months after their marriage. She was being buried back at Norton on 19th April 1839, aged 52, although her final abode was given as Weston. Izzard survived her by nearly thirty years, and Susan's daughter Sarah Cox was still living with him in the 1841 census at Watsons Hill in Weston.

1. ↑ Bedfordshire and Luton Archives and Records Service. Transcript of Stotfold Parish Registers.

   ch. 14 May 1786: Sus d Tho & Mary Moul

2.   Deaths index, in General Register Office. England and Wales Civil Registration. (London: General Register Office).

   d. Susan BRAY, June Quarter 1839, Hitchin Registration District, Volume 6, page 348, aged 52 [1786/7]

3. ↑ Burials register, in Church of England. Norton Parish Registers.

   BURIALS in the Parish of Norton in the County of Hertford in the Year 1839
   No.	Name	Abode	When buried	Age	By whom the Ceremony was performed
   145	Susanna Bray	Weston	April 19th	52 y[ea]rs	Jos. B. Watson