Family Lessons 137: Motherless Child

My 9x great-grandparents, Edward Blackledge and Margaret (nee Cooper) married at Aughton near Ormskirk in 1725. He had married an Elizabeth Lathom of Croston ten years before, with whom he had six children; with my great-grandmother, he had produced a further eight. Whether she was a kind or harsh stepmother, there is no record. Curiously, her youngest child, James Blackledge, was baptised on 27 May, 1742 at Chorley Parish Church (above), but she had already died on 6 April, just seven weeks before. Whether she died giving birth, or had some unfortunate accident, little James was not to have any memories of his mother. The delay in his baptism might bespeak the disorder in the family home caused by the mother’s death, and a putting-off of the baptism in the very place in which her body had been laid to rest.

A child burying its parent is a tragedy; a parent burying its child is a potential calamity. Although Edward evidently enjoyed the state of marriage and was not shy of procreation, there is no further record of nuptial vows. Perhaps an additional housemaid was preferred, who would assist with the children but give him no more.

I cannot find how long little James lived: there were two earlier siblings of his to bear that name who did not live beyond infancy. Growing up without a mother cannot have been easy. Although death, divorce and desertion sometimes take parents away from children, we know, deep down, that a child is best served by both, for the one helps and complements the other. But whether we have two parents, or one, or none, we have a Heavenly Father who loves us more than all others combined.