Eliza Kent was one of Ari’s 5x great-grandmothers. She was born in 1814 in the village of Kirk Langley, which is 4.5 miles north-west of Derby. Her baptism took place in the fourteenth-century village church dedicated to St Michael, which apparently had been almost destroyed by a violent tempest in 1545.
Derbyshire, England, Church of England Births and Baptisms, 1813–1916
When Eliza was just thirteen, her father John was killed in an accident with a wagon, and her mother Ellen died five years later from consumption. Eliza had an older brother and sister but she would have had to earn a living, and this is perhaps when she started work as a domestic servant.
In the spring of 1840, Eliza married William Boothby at St Alkmund’s church in Derby. The marriage certificate gives Eliza’s occupation as “service”, and William’s as “labourer”. Both were living in Little Eaton, just north of Derby. Neither of them signed their name. The marriage service was led by the curate, Rev. Charles Robert Hope.
Derby Mercury, 18 July 1832. Image © The British Library Board.
The 1841 census, taken a year after their marriage, shows Eliza and William living in the village of Holbrook Moor, with baby Eliza Anne, one month old.
By 1851, the couple had three more children (Samuel, Ellen and John). Their fourth child, William, had died as a baby.
Apparently there had been an outbreak of typhus in 1846:
Derbyshire Advertiser and Journal, 23 October 1846. Image © The British Library Board.
Another child born in 1856 would also be named William, and he lived to adulthood although described as “feebleminded” and “subject to fits”. He lived with his sister Eliza Anne, who was married to George Noon, a greengrocer and Primitive Methodist preacher.
Eliza died on 22 September 1859 in Holbrook, aged forty-four. The cause of death was consumption.
Derbyshire Advertiser and Journal, 21 April 1859. Image © The British Library Board.
Her funeral took place on the 26th at the church in Holbrook.
Ari, this is how you are related to Eliza:
