Mary Ann Pickering

I’d had it in mind to research the childhood of Mary Ann Pickering (his daughter) since the spring of 2024, and had been thinking about it on and off for ages before that.

Mary Ann Pickering was Puss’s grandmother. Pretty much all I know about Mary Ann was that she was the young girl, who – on stitching her sampler back in the mid-Victorian period was told she must unpick her surname, as she wasn’t entitled to the name of Pickering. Didi has the sampler, with the other family samplers, and this sad and curious tale just felt as though it needed looking in to.

About Mary Ann Pickering, and her nuclear childhood family

Mary (no second part of her name Ann) Pickering can be found as a baby in the 1841 Census at home with her parents in Wollerton, Shropshire.

It was a small community, roughly on the road from Market Drayton, leading South West down to Shrewsbury. The nearest village was Hodnet. In the home are dad James, a cooper, with his younger brother Henry, also a cooper, plus his wife Mary, daughter Carolina, and an older woman of Independent means, Elizabeth Deakin. (Not all the siblings were present – e.g. Ann was living with another family and poor Joseph had died as a baby).

In the 1861 Census, Mary Ann can be found still living with her parents and some of her siblings. They seem to have improved their lot in life. Their address is Audley Brow, Moreton Say, and in the household, living in the home are also: a boarder, 14yo Sarah Hampton whose occupation is ‘Assistant to Farmers’ Wife’, and a servant – Thomas Tracey, 24yo, a waggoner. Mary Ann isn’t given an occupation, and neither incidentally is her mother (by inference the Farmer’s Wife), but 52yo James’ occupation is ‘Farmer of 180 acres employing one labourer’.

Scooting back a decade, in the 1851 Census James is already a ‘Farmer & seedsman occupying 89[?] acres employing one lab. Outdoor’. The number of acres is hard to read – it could be 39 acres… but it’s an increase on the 4 and a bit acres in Wollerton that he’s recorded in the tithe record of 1840 as occupying (meadow and pasture). Plot 163 on the Tithe records.

Whatever he’s doing as a farmer and seedsman he seems to be accruing wealth through his life. By the time he died in 1882, a widower, his National Probate Calendar entry and will confirm that he bequeathed an equal share of his £1,700 estate to his four surviving children (Ann, Carolina, Mary Ann and Henry). I’d like to find out more about his farming and seedsman business – what did he cultivate/sell? I’m also pleased to see Mary Ann, recorded in the will, with the siblings. So it seems that he, at least, had no grudge to bear her?

Where was Mary Ann at the time of the 1851 Census?

Well, that’s the thing. So far, I’ve just not been able to find her. This should be no ‘biggie’ – it’s hardly breaking news not to be able to find someone in the census. But I’m particularly keen to find her – as the 1851 Census is exactly the point in her young life, when, aged very roughly 12, she would have been stitching – and unpicking – that sampler…

So here’s the irony – if the family tale checks out, and she was told she mustn’t stitch the name ‘Pickering’ into her embroidery, then presumably she may equally have been recorded by another name in the census too. So I really need to remember to search for Mary Ann under any possible surname!

I’ve searched for Mary Ann with her older sister – Carolina, who turned out (I’m pretty sure) to be a 17yo farm servant a few miles away. But no sight of Mary Ann.

I think my next step must be to build out the wider family – seek out all the siblings of her parents, and seek out her grandparents on the 1851. And see if I can find her living with any of them.

Mary Ann’s grandparents, uncles & aunts

To be continued. At the mo, I’m adding these details to Family Tree Maker and syncing them with my Ancestry tree afterwards.

Mini fact-file for Mary Ann Pickering

born: 18 December 1839, Wollerton, Shropshire, to parents James Pickering, occupation cooper, and Mary Ann Pickering formerly Evanson. Her mother registered the birth on 7 January 1840.

baptised: 19 January 1840, Hodnet.

married: Thomas Jones on 25 January 1866, at St Paul’s, Skelmersdale, Ormskirk, Lancashire.

Images: census and NPC : Ancestry. Birth register entry : GRO.

Blog last updated: 10th September 2025