MARY ELIZABETH BOAGEY by OLWYN HART

The Life and Times of Mary Elizabeth Boagey, Hartlepool, 1856-1936

Mary Elizabeth Crabb, nee Boagey (Lizzie 1), born 1856 and died 24/7/1936. She was the sister of my great grandfather, therefore my great grand aunt.

Mary Elizabeth Boagey (Lizzie 2): born 1891 and died 1934- my granny’s aunt and namesake.

Mary Elizabeth Boagey (Lizzie 1) was the first of two children born to Margaret Atkinson (1839-1896) and Hunter Boagey (1837-1860), my 2 x great grandfather. 

Their second child was Hunter (1858-1927), my great grandfather, who married Esther Banks Allen in 1890.

Tragically, my 2 x great grandfather Hunter died in 1860 as a result of TB, aged only 23, leaving his young wife Margaret with two little children aged 2 and 4,

fatherless and husbandless in very difficult times.

The name ‘Hunter’ became a family tradition, originating from Isabella Hunter (1792-1849) and Francis Boagey (1791-1842), who married on 17 May 1812. They had 14 children, of whom the youngest son was my great grandfather Hunter, born in 1837. Therefore, Isabella and Francis were the grandparents of Mary Elizabeth and Hunter, born in 1856 and 1858 respectively. 

In the 1861 census, Mary and Hunter are living with their maternal grandparents Mary and Henry Atkinson, at York Place, Hartlepool. 

Resident at the time of the 1861 census are:- 

Henry, aged 55, head

Mary, aged 56, wife

George H Atkinson, aged 17, son

Margaret Banyey[1], aged 22, daughter

Hunter Banyey, aged 2, grandson

Mary Elizabeth Banyey, aged 4, granddaughter

James Gilroy, aged 22, ships joiner, born in Northumberland

Joseph Gilroy, 20, blacksmith, born in Northumberland

[1] NB: in this case, ‘Banyey’ should be ‘Boagey’- an error on the part of the census scribe.

Resident at the time of the 1871 census of 2 York Place, Hartlepool, are:-

Henry Atkinson, aged 64

Mary Atkinson, aged 65

George H Atkinson, aged 25

Mary E Boagey, aged 15

Hunter Boagey, aged 13

Mary and Hunter’s widowed mother Margaret is not living in the house at this time, as she married John Lee. I would imagine that as a newly married couple just starting out that life would have been difficult enough in those hard times, without having to look after her two teenagers. She married John Lee (1832-1888),  in June 1864.

It appears that Margaret had 9 children.

Mary Elizabeth and Hunter’s half siblings are:-

George Henry Lee, 1865-1937

John Lee, 1866-1875

Henry Atkinson Lee, 1869 –

Catherine Horsley Lee, 1870 – 

Mary Scot Lee, 1873 – 

George Horsley Lee, 1876 – 

Margaret Alice Lee, 1878-

Mary Elizabeth Boagey (Lizzie 1)

In 1881 when Lizzie was a young woman of 24, she was a milliner and bought a shop at 102 High Street, Hartlepool, which she had previously rented at the sum of £12 per annum. The sale was carried out on behalf of Mr. Lyle (deceased), of Lyle’s Flour Mill. It was lot no. 4 of 5 lots in and around High Street that were sold at auction.

The shop was sat next to a strip of land adjacent to Dovecot Yard, with Pratt’s Passage on the opposite side of the small block. One wonders if her grandparents Henry and Mary Atkinson assisted with the finances in ‘setting her up’ in business, as times must have been really difficult financially in the 1880s, especially for a fatherless 24-year-old young woman.  Nonetheless, one imagines that Lizzie and Hunter were exceptionally well cared for in all respects by their grandparents, due to the fact that their father had died and their mother had remarried. Most of the old photographs of High Street show it to be a thriving hive of activity.

Lizzie must have been quite a confident, adventurous young woman who was not afraid of change and moving around, as the 1891 census shows Mary still pursuing her trade as a milliner, but living at 170 Pelaw Leazes, St. Giles, Durham.  

Sometime after the 1891 census, Mary moved to 134 Frederick Street, South Shields, which we can see on the 1901 census. It was after this that Mary met John W Crabb, a policeman, whom she married on the 22^nd of January 1905 in South Shields, at the age of 49 years old.  They must have fancied a change of location, as according to the 1911 census they are living in a 10 bedroomed house at 7 Mill Garth, Richmond with John, aged 56, a police pensioner born in Somerset, and Mary 53, reported as doing ‘nothing’. They moved back to Hartlepool sometime after 1911, as upon John Crabb’s death his address was 2 York Place- the house Lizzie had lived in as a child. Perhaps it had been bequeathed to her by her grandparents? At some point they had been living on Town Wall, as my Aunt Alice recalls her mother, my granny Lizzie, helping her ‘Aunt Lizzie’ in the house when she was living there. 

John Crabb

In the 1901 census, John, aged 47, is living in Beer Crocombe, Somerset, with his 2 sons William aged 17 and John aged 15. Although John was born in Somerset, it is listed that both of his sons were born in Crook, County Durham. John died in Hartlepool in 1928, aged 74, at 2 York Place and is buried at West View Cemetery. Probate was granted to sons John Alfred Crabb, a schoolmaster, and Stanley Wyatt Crabb, a chemist’s assistant. Sometime after John’s death, Lizzie moved to 9 Raby Street, which was her address until she died on the 24^th July 1936. Probate was granted on the 17^th November 1936 to Stanley Wyatt Crabb, at this time a shop assistant, at the amount of £226.13.3d.

Olwyn Hart, 1.1.2016.

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