Finding the Women by the Railway

When researching the people identified in these documents, I was tasked to identify the unheard voices of the women that were listed as having property in that area. I identified a total of 8 landowning women in the document: Isabella Booth, Celia Ramshaw, Mrs Garth, Mrs Huttons, Mrs Collier, Lady Tempest, Mrs Gibson and Sarah Wharton, which was my starting point when attempting to trace their stories. This ended up being a challenging task as in the early 19^th century, women’s roles and experiences were often not well-documented, especially in context of industrial advancements like the railway. Hence, attempting to identify the stories of these women through census reports, church documents and newspaper articles often only offered generic information, if anything, making it difficult to trace individual stories.

Additionally, a majority of the women were referred to only by their last name e.g. ‘Mrs Garth’ or ‘Lady Tempest’ which made it extra challenging to match the correct records to these women as there is a lot of uncertainty when identifying whether the records are referring to the same person or not. However, despite this, in one case, I was able to find ‘Mrs Collier’ mentioned in an article in the Durham County Advertiser in October 1822 (Figure 1), that specifically talks about the land area I previously identified. This was an exciting discovery because it showed a direct connection between the document of the landowners and the changes made to the area as a result of the railway planning, helping to solidify her identity in the historical context. Although I struggled with finding further information around her beyond her surname, the article offered more insight into how the land was managed and changed.