Dinah and Charlotte Tate

Two sisters dead on the same day

Died Sept 29th 1849   

Dinah and Charlotte were born  in 1835 and 1845 respectively . Both died on September 29th 1849. They were two of the daughters born to George Tate and his wife Ann.

George was a plumber born in Alnwick in 1811. Ann was the same age but born in Felton. By the time of the 1841 census, George and Ann had four daughters, Dinah was the oldest born on 22/2/1835, so she was 6 years old, Margaret was 4, Elizabeth was 2 and baby Ann was 4 months. The family was living in Bondgate Within at that time.

By 1849 when the cholera outbreak struck Alnwick they were living in Correction House Yard. Dinah was aged 14 and Charlotte just 4 the day before both died, in the first week of the outbreak. Two other children had been born, Isabella in 1844, and George Robert in 1847.

By 1851 George and Ann, and their remaining five children, were back in Bondgate Within. By then Margaret was working as an apprentice dressmaker, aged only 14.

By the next census, George Robert Tate was still with his parents who were now living in Hayden Cottage on Alnwick Moor, so they were probably in a Freeman’s Cottage. Their daughter Margaret was living with her two other sisters in Clayport Street. Isabella was a seventeen year old bonnet maker and Ann, a milliner was married to William Summers, a tailor and were sharing the house.

By the 1871 census, Margaret was still single and head of the household, now in St. Michael’s Place which she shared with her little brother. George Robert was now a joiner and was already widowed at the age of 23. He did not remarry and lived together with sister Margaret for the rest of his life.

Nephew Henry Potts came to live with them before the 1881 census. He stayed with them for over 20 years. George Robert died in 1911 aged 64, just after the 1911 census, in Hotspur Place. Margaret died aged 87, in 1924, such a long time after her poor sisters Dinah and Charlotte.