William PLAXTON [35969]

  General Notes:

William Plaxton 1844-1841. Born in Cottingham, a village just NW of Hull, the youngest of 6 children, three of whom did not survive to adulthood. His father Thomas Plaxton, a labourer (b.1811) had himself died by the time William was six, and in 1850 his mother Ann (1813-1891) married again, this time to a James Atkinson (1806-?1869), a railway labourer who lived in Beverley. She took William into the household with her and William is described as adopted son - indeed, the only child in the household. In the 1861 census when James Atkinson is 58, William - now 17, has a position as a cabinet maker's apprentice, but ten years later in the census of 1871 life is very different: James Atkinson is dead, and the apprenticeship seems to have come to a premature end, as William is now described as an agricultural labourer. Ann is head of the household, working as a laundress. Mother and son stay in Beverley and do not go back to Cottingham.
A year later, at the age of 28 William marries Mary Anne Nightingale Metcalf, daughter of Richard Metcalf. She had been born in Skidby, not far from Cottingham, so it seems the Cottingham connection was still important. Her father was a fisherman, William describes himself as a labourer on the marriage certificate, but by 1873 when John William is born he describes himself as a tanner in Lurk Lane immediately behind the Minster. By the April census of 1881 however he is once more a general labourer, with eight year old John William and five year old Ada in the house, plus a boarder to provide a further income stream.
He dies at the end of that yearJ
Jane Brown 2024

William married Mary Ann Nightingale METCALF [35970] [MRIN: 13048], daughter of Richard METCALF [35995] and Unknown, on 11 May 1872 in Beverley YKS. (Mary Ann Nightingale METCALF [35970] was born circa 1851 in Skidby YKS.)