Thomas Robinson

Thomas Robinson (1845 - 1873)

FATHER:	MOTHER:	SPOUSE:	OFFSPRING:
John Robinson	Jane Webb	Harriet Crossland (b.1838)	Ann Robinson (b.1869) Harriet Robinson (b.1871)

BIRTH:	23 August 1845 - Nelson Street, Barnsley
MARRIAGE:	7 June 1868 - St. Mary's Church, Barnsley
DEATH:	13 July 1873 - 14 School Street, Barnsley

KNOWN ADDRESSES:

Nelson Street, Barnsley - 1845
14 School Street, Barnsley - 1873

BIOGRAPHY:

Thomas Robinson was born in August 1845 to John and Jane Robinson (formerly Webb). He had a sister born three years later in August 1848.

Thomas's mother died of phthisis (consumption) when he was only seven years old. It was a disease that was to continue to wreak havoc on the family.

In June 1868 at the age of 22 Thomas married Harriet Crossland who was pregnant with his child, Ann, born seven months later. Harriet was seven years older than Thomas and already had two other children. Harriet allegedly often claimed that her second child, Jane Crossland, should also have been called Robinson. It is perhaps likely then that Thomas was Jane's father too. Two years later they had another daughter who they named Harriet.

At this time the young family were living with Harriet's parents at 14 School Street, Barnsley. Thomas was a painter (journeyman).

A "journeyman" was described in Webster's 1913 dictionary as

"a man hired to work by the day; now, commonly, one who has mastered a handicraft or trade; -- distinguished from apprentice and from master workman."

The house that Thomas lived in was very full and this may have been partly to blame for him contracting consumption to which he eventually succumbed to on 13 July 1873, being buried three days later in Barnsely cemetary, plot Q854.

Consumption was described in Webster's 1913 dictionary as

A progressive wasting away of the body; esp., that form of wasting, attendant upon pulmonary phthisis and associated with cough, spitting of blood, hectic fever, etc.; pulmonary phthisis; -- called also {pulmonary consumption}.

At the time of Thomas's death he was a 27-year-old father of two. Fifty-one years later his wife, Harriet, was buried in the same plot.

IMAGES: (click to enlarge)

St. Mary's Church in Barnsley where
Harriet and Thomas married in 1868.

HISTORICAL EVENTS:

1841 - SIR ROBERT PEEL (Conservative) becomes Prime Minister for the second time.
1843 – THE POLICE FORCE FOUNDED. Policeman were often called ‘Bobbies’ and ‘Peelers’ in reference to the then Prime Minister, Sir Robert Peel.
1846 – REPEAL OF THE CORN LAWS, thus enabling a greater amount of trade.
1846 – EARL JOHN RUSSELL (Liberal) becomes Prime Minister.
1852 – EDWARD GEORGE GEOFFREY SMITH STANLEY, EARL OF DERBY (Conservative) becomes Prime Minister.
1852 – GEORGE HAMILTON GORDON, EARL OF ABERDEEN (Conservative) becomes Prime Minister in a coalition cabinet.
1854 – BRITAIN JOINS WITH FRANCE IN THE CRIMEAN WAR aimed at blocking Russia’s access to the Mediterranean. The war lasts until 1856.
1855 – HENRY JOHN TEMPLE, VISCOUNT PALMERSTON (Liberal) becomes Prime Minister.
1858 - EDWARD GEORGE GEOFFREY SMITH STANLEY, EARL OF DERBY (Conservative) becomes Prime Minister for the second time.
1859 - HENRY JOHN TEMPLE, VISCOUNT PALMERSTON (Liberal) becomes Prime Minister for the second time.
1859 – CHARLES DARWIN PUBLISHES HIS GREAT WORK, “ON THE ORIGIN OF SPECIES BY MEANS OF NATURAL SELECTION” to diverse public opinion. In it he puts forth the view that animals are not created individually, but rather, that they evolve through a process he calls natural selection.
1861 – OUTBREAK OF THE AMERICAN CIVIL WAR. Though having no direct affect on Britain since America had severed colonial ties, the lack of raw cotton shipped from North America to Northern England sent many into unemployment.
1865 - EARL JOHN RUSSELL (Liberal) becomes Prime Minister for the second time.
1866 - EDWARD GEORGE GEOFFREY SMITH STANLEY, EARL OF DERBY (Conservative) becomes Prime Minister for the third time.
1867 – SECOND REFORM BILL OF THE HOUSE OF COMMONS gave the vote to most urban male workers.
1868 – BENJAMIN DISRAELI, EARL OF BEACONSFIELD (Conservative) becomes Prime Minister.
1868 – WILLIAM GLADSTONE (Liberal) becomes Prime Minister.
1870 – EDUCATION ACT IS PASSED providing the establishment of government schools and for compulsory education.
1874 - BENJAMIN DISRAELI, EARL OF BEACONSFIELD (Conservative) becomes Prime Minister for the second time.
1876 – ALEXANDER GRAHAM BELL SENDS A VOICE MESSAGE AND THE TELEPHONE IS INVENTED. The first words that were clearly heard by the recipient were, “Watson, come here, I want you”, heard by his assistant, Mr Watson in Brantford, Ontario, Canada.
1880 - WILLIAM GLADSTONE (Liberal) becomes Prime Minister for the second time.
1884 – FURTHER REFORMS OF THE HOUSE OF COMMONS gives the vote to almost all adult males.
1885 – ROBERT ARTHUR TALBOT GASCOYNE-CECIL, MARQUIS OF SALISBURY (Conservative) becomes Prime Minister.
1886 - WILLIAM GLADSTONE (Liberal) becomes Prime Minister for the third time.
1886 - ROBERT ARTHUR TALBOT GASCOYNE-CECIL, MARQUIS OF SALISBURY (Conservative) becomes Prime Minister for the second time.
1892 - WILLIAM GLADSTONE (Liberal) becomes Prime Minister for the fourth time.
1894 – ARCHIBALD PHILIP PRIMROSE, EARL OF ROSEBERY (Liberal) becomes Prime Minister.
1895 - ROBERT ARTHUR TALBOT GASCOYNE-CECIL, MARQUIS OF SALISBURY (Conservative) becomes Prime Minister for the third time.
1899 – BRITAIN ENTERS THE BOER WAR in South Africa against Dutch and German forces. The war lasts until 1902. Popular opinion at home is against the war and the effect is that further colonial expansion is not favored.
1901 – EDWARD VII ASCENDS THE THRONE following the death of his mother, Queen Victoria, Britain’s longest serving monarch. Edward is the eldest son of Victoria and Albert and marks the start of the House of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha.
1902 – ARTHUR JAMES BALFOUR (Conservative) becomes Prime Minister.
1905 – SIR HENRY CAMPBELL-BANNERMAN (Liberal) becomes Prime Minister.
1908 – HERBERT HENRY ASQUITH (Liberal) becomes Prime Minister.
1910 – GEORGE V ASCENDS THE THRONE following the death of his father, Edward VII. George is Edward’s second son.
1914 – BILL GRANTING HOME RULE TO IRELAND BECOME LAW.
1914 – WORLD WAR I, the Great War, starts.
1916 – DAVID LLOYD GEORGE (Liberal) becomes Prime Minister.
1917 – GEORGE V CHANGES THE NAME OF THE ROYAL HOUSE FROM SAXE-COBURG-GOTHA TO WINDSOR.
1918 – UNIVERSAL SUFFRAGE ACT PASSED giving the vote to women over thirty years old.
1918 – WORLD WAR I ENDS.
1920 – GOVERNMENT OF IRELAND ACT PASSED, superseding an earlier unacceptable act. Six of the nine counties of Ulster are to be known as Northern Ireland while the other three and the provinces of Connaught, Munster and Leinster are to form the Irish Free State. Northern Ireland is given its own parliament and permitted to send representatives to Westminster while the Irish Free State is given a similar status to that of Britain’s commonwealth. The Irish Free State ceases to be part of the United Kingdom from early 1922.
1922 – ANDREW BONAR LAW (Conservative) becomes Prime Minister.
1923 – ALBERT EINSTEIN’S THEORY OF RELATIVITY discards the concept of absolute motion and instead treats only relative motion between two systems or frames of reference. One consequence of the theory is that space and time are no longer viewed as separate, independent entities but rather are seen to form a four-dimensional continuum called space-time. Einstein also sought unsuccessfully for many years to incorporate the theory into a unified field theory valid also for subatomic and electromagnetic phenomena.
1923 – STANLEY BALDWIN (Conservative) becomes Prime Minister.
1924 – JAMES MACDONALD (Labour) becomes Prime Minister.