Catch up on the full story of last weeks NEWS...........
*Job Moorhouse –
Job took his own life rather tragically in last week’s
news. He was born in Thurgoland,
Yorkshire in 1843, the son of stone mason Allen Moorhouse and his wife
Elizabeth.
Aged 18 Job is still living in Yorkshire, working as many
of the locals did as a coal miner. But
by 1871 Job has left the family home along with his younger brother John and
they now live in Chesterfield. John is
21 years old and still works for the mining industry, but as a colliery clerk
now a much more clean occupation. Job is
28 years old and has a wife named Elizabeth and three small children; Allen
aged 6 years, Job aged 3 years and baby Thirza aged 9 months. The family all live together in the Shambles
in the centre of Chesterfield. Job is a
provision dealer and Elizabeth is a dressmaker.
Job married Elizabeth Lee in the summer of 1863 at the
Unitarian Chapel on Elder Way in Chesterfield. Elizabeth died at the beginning of
1874. The couple had at least four
children as Mabel was born a year earlier in 1873.
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| Methodist Chapel, Saltergate, Chesterfield |
Job was not long in finding a new wife as later that year
he married Ann Woodward. They also married in a non-conformist church,
the Wesleyan Chapel on Saltergate. Ann
was a few years older than Job being born around 1837
Job and Ann continued to live in Chesterfield town centre
and in 1881 they are living at 2 Daniels Yard, near to Low Pavement. Job is now calling himself a “provision
merchant” so it looks like he was gaining social standing by this time. Ann was bringing up the two girls, Thirza and
Mabel as her own and there was a servant girl named Sarah Jane Woodward, who
may have been related to Ann.
Ten years on and the family have moved out of the town
centre to live in the suburbs of Chesterfield.
They are living “near St Johns Church” in Littlemoor, Newbold. Job is only 48 years old but is described as “living
off own means”, so maybe the move was for his retirement. His daughter Mabel had now married Robert
Clarke a pork butcher and the couple are living with Job and Ann.
Job was a prominent member of the Chesterfield society; he
was involved local matters such as the education of the children of Newbold and
he attended meetings in 1870 to discuss the success and upgrade of the parish
school room. He was also appointed on the “committee of inspection” working with creditors delaing with the
bankrupts of Chesterfield and the surrounding area.
He was a member of the Licenced Victuallers Association
in 1881 – which may well have been the beginning of his love for the demon
drink.
In 1880 Job is in the news as he was the victim of theft
at this shop on Daniels Yard, when John Barrett a labourer of Bradshaw’s Place
and Samuel Allen also a labourer of Dog Kennels were charged with stealing
72lbs of bacon from Job to the value of £1 10s.
The prisoners were remanded at large.
The first signs that thing's were not going smoothly begin to
show in 1886 when on 17th June
William Siddal was said to have threatened Job saying “I’ll kill you and
will bury you same as you do your pigs”.
William was said to have entered the home of Job in a wild manner, waving
a poker. In his defence William stated
that it was actually Job who had been “running up and down shouting with a whip
and threatened to hit him with it”
William was ordered to keep the peace for 12 months and fined £5 bail.
Skip forward 4 years and this time it is Job who is in
the defendant’s position. In November
1890 he finds himself standing in front of the Borough Police Council accused
of assaulting Isaac Shaw. It appears
that on 10th November Isaac Shaw of Brampton tells how he was at Mr
Dyson’s the hairdresser’s in the Market Hall.
It was a cold day and Isaac had seated himself on a bench next to the fire
when Job and begun picking an argument with him. Job accused Isaac of robbing a man of £80,
which Isaac denied and so Job suggested that the pair go outside to fight. Isaac refused but then Job “struck him
knocking him on to the floor and pulled a quantity of his beard out”. Mr Dyson the hairdresser had to intervene and
managed to pull the pair apart. In his
defence Job argued that Isaac and his friends were all “rogues and thieves from
Brampton” Job was at the hairdressers with his brother John who stated that he had heard
Mr Shaw (a friend of Isaac’s) call Job a “drunken --------“. The confused case ended with each party being
charged to pay their own costs and the case was dismissed.
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| Probate entry Job Moorhouse www.ancestry.co.uk |
And so on to 20th December 1894 when Job
finally ended his own life. Drink being
the reason given for his temporary insanity.
He was living at Burton House, Littlemoor at the time and bequeathed the
sum of £718 3s 9d. Executors of the will were John Moorhouse bookkeeper, Thomas Furness chemist and
druggist and Tom Harold Furness bookkeeper.
Job’s wife Ann lived a long life and passed away in 1922
aged 86. In 1911 she was still living at
Burton House, Littlemoor the scene of that tragic day back in December 1894
when her husband took a knife to his own throat. Living with Ann is her spinster younger
sister 68 year old Esther Woodward.
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