Sunday 17 November 2013


Boughey, Mrs Josephus, Seedley Road, Pendleton, Manchester. A heavily pregnant young wife from Manchester. 

Mary Fernie McMichael was born in Manchester in about 1843, In 1861 she was living with her widowed mother at 55 Upper Brook Street, Chorlton on Medlock.  ( In 1866 two neighbours from Upper Brook Street signed the petition, Sarah Steinthal an Unitarian Minister’s wife and Mrs Elizabeth Hope Grundy, whose husband was a professor of Music.)  . Mrs McMIchael had two middle aged boarders (a calico printer and a Drysalter) and a servant . She remarried the next year and Mary married Josephus Boughey in Cheshire in 1863.   Her daughter Mary Fernie Boughey was born on 7th July 1866 , just a few weeks after Mary had signed the Womens’ Suffrage Petition.  In the 1871 census her husband was a  Bolter Down in a forge (A bolter (belter) down was the first man to receive the hot billet from the furnace he would then shove it into a pair of steel rolls with his hand tongs  .When it went through the rolls it was made smaller in diameter by stretching, i.e. a hot 3" bar going into a cold 2/12" square hole stretched it and reduced the diameter. When it went through the rolls a man at the back(cog backer) would catch it with his tongs and shove it through a smaller hole in the rolls. Each time the billet would get smaller in diameter and longer in length until the required size was reached then the long bar would then be passed to the next set of rolls until the require size was reached.)

 On 24 Sept 1872 the business partnership of Josephus Boughey in Boughey Burgess and Co was dissolved.  In 1879 Josephus Boughey appears in Slaters Directory of Manchester and Salford on page 42 as a householder at Victoria Terrace 201 West High Street, Cross Lane Pendleton. In 1881 the couple had moved back to Cheshire and he was an Agent for Gas Apparatus.  When Mary died in Altricham in 1917 she left £135..9s


1861 census Mary McMichael Registration District: Chorlton Sub-registration District: Chorlton upon Medlock ED, institution, or vessel: 18 Household Schedule Number: 30 Piece: 2880 Folio: 6 Page Number: 6

 
1871 census Registration District: Warrington Sub-registration District: Warrington ED, institution, or vessel: 28 Household Schedule Number: 127 Piece: 3907 Folio: 107 Page Number:28


Another Manchester radical, Mrs Hannah Boswell was born Hannah Blakeley in about 1816 at Prestwich, Lancashire.  Her father was a Book Keeper.  She married in 1849.  Her husband was George Boswell an Omnibus proprietor with 2 live in omnibus coachmen.  In 1861 their address was Omnibus Office Clarence Terrace, Rusholme.  George Boswell died in 1863 leaving £800.  In 1866 she was probably running the coach business as her children were still quite young  On the Rushholme and Victoria Park Archive  http://rusholmearchive.org/a-tour-of-wilmslow-road  there is a photograph (taken by Helmut Petschler 1860-70) of a horse-drawn omnibus of the City Omnibus company that travelled through Rusholme on its way to Didsbury.  The omnibus seen in front of the Didsbury Hotel is presumably awaiting passengers for the return trip.  In the 1871 census she describes herself as a Coach Proprietress and in 1881 she still owns the business with her son George as manager, as she does in 1891.  When she died in 1900 Hannah left £1,450..6s..3d

1861 census Registration District: Chorlton Sub-registration District: Ardwick ED, institution, or vessel: 35 Household Schedule Number: 23 Piece: 2874 Folio: 92 Page Number: 5