Mary Scotcher c.1785-1863

Parents: James Scotcher and Sarah Phillips (1)
Born: c.1785 in Little Wratting.
Baptised: 24th December 1785 at St Mary's Church, Little Wratting.(1)
Married: John Whiting of Haverhill, on 29th April 1807 at St Margaret's Church, Ipswich.(4)
Children: John Whiting b.1814, Elizabeth Whiting b.1816, Seth Whiting b.1819 died in infancy, Sophia Scotcher Whiting b.1821, Jabez Whiting b.1824 died in infancy and and Jabez Whiting b.1829
Died: January 1863 in Burton End, Haverhill. Buried on 20th January 1863 at St Mary's Parish Church.(2,3)

Bio: I have not been able to locate Mary on the 1841 census. By that time she would have been married and had all her children. (see John Whiting for discussion about their children)

Mary appears on the 1851 census as a pauper living with his husband John and their daughter Sophia Buttle (nee Whiting) and her family in Clements Lane.

They are here again on the 1861 census, except this time living with the Iron family (George, Sophia and children Emma, Mary Ann and Eliza), who are lodgers.

We know that Mary was born in Little Wratting from the evidence of two censuses, so I looked at all the births around the 1780's of girls with the name Mary in the Little Wratting parish registers. There was a Mary Scotcher baptized on 24th December 1785, who was the daughter of James Scotcher and Sarah Phillips.(3) Confusingly, the surname was entered differently for several of their children - as Scothman (in the case of Mary's entry) or Scother, but as each time the parents are James and Sarah (late Phillips) I think we can put this down to clerical errors. Mary was to die in January 1863 soon after her husband John, and was buried at the parish church.(2,3)

Sources:

(1) Suffolk Records Office, Bury St Edmunds, Parish Registers of St Mary's Church, Little Wratting. Fiche FL502/4/p1
(2) Death Register. 1st Quarter 1863, Risbridge District, Volume 4a Page 273
(3) Suffolk Records Office, Bury St Edmunds, Parish Registers of St Mary's Church, Haverhill. Fiche FL578/4/p36 of 37
(4) SFHS, Marriages at Ipswich St Margaret. Findmypast.co.uk, parish records collection 1538-2005