John Snowdon
Died 7th October 1849
Above: John Snowdon Jnrs birth record
John Snowdon was, according to his obituary in the Newcastle Courant, a saddler from Dispensary Street, Alnwick. He was one of four to die from Cholera on 7th October 1849.
We found a John Snowdon who was a saddler on the 1841 census for Clayport Street. He was married to Isabella (Cuthbertson) and had three sons; John 6, George 4 and Thomas 1.
Looking at the Bishops Transcripts we found that John and Isabella were married in St Michael’s Church, Alnwick on New Year’s Day 1834. Their sons were all baptised in St Mary’s Catholic Church, now the Bailiffgate museum. John was baptised on 12/10/1834, George on 21/8/1836 and Thomas on 22/12/1839.
Between the census and 1849, when the cholera struck, the Snowdon family moved from Clayport to Dispensary St. Another son, Robert Bickerton Snowdon was born on 12/3/1844.
When John died, aged just 38 it plunged the family into poverty. In 1851 the census records that Isabella was a “pauper /washerwoman.” We now learn that she was born in Rennington, and son John was a 16 year old apprentice joiner. Life must have been a struggle.
By 1861, Isabella was recorded as living in Snowball’s Yard off Clayport. She was working as a laundress. Of her two older children, Thomas was a coach smith and Robert B was a tobacconist, AND there was a fifth son in the family. William was a 9 year old scholar born in 1852, three years after her husband’s death!
By 1871 all her sons had left home and Isabella had a lodger for a bit of extra income. She died 1878 age 68. Where had her five sons gone?
-John had married Ellen Mills from Newcastle and they had four sons and a daughter in Newcastle before returning to Alnwick, where he worked as a cabinet maker.
-George also went to Newcastle and worked as a coach fitter, after marrying a Thomasin Darling in Alnwick, in 1860. By the 1871 census, they had three daughters all born in Newcastle. Youngest brother William (17) was staying with George and Thomasin, but not working. Sadly George died in 1876 age 39.
-Thomas was the only brother to stay in Alnwick, working as a coach smith in Clayport. He married Elizabeth (from Spindleson).
They had one son and three daughters, and were living and working in Spours Yard. By 1911, Thomas and Elizabeth were 71 and 69 respectively and living in Short’s Building, Clayport. A granddaughter Elizabeth Percy Jackson was staying with them.
-Robert moved to Darlington. By 1901 he was still single, at 57, and worked as a tobacco spinner.
-William married Ann from Alnwick and moved to Newcastle where he became a fishmonger at 77, Shield St. They had four children and a servant living with them on the 1901 census, so he appears to have done reasonably well for himself.