Thank you Robert Peel!
For someone like me – who has more than a passing interest (obsession) in my family history – 2023 was a bit of a jaw dropper (best not to ask too much about 2024). Not only did I find out why my 2x great-grandfather Richard Jarrett suddenly disappeared from his family’s lives (creating great hardship as he did so), but I also found out how – and why – my 3x great-grandfather, Samuel Flack, got to be the beneficiary of some groundbreaking ‘Great British Lawmaking’, as a direct result of his own ‘not-so-Great British Law Breaking’.
In 1861 a little girl was born in the village of Mere in Wiltshire. Her birth was not recorded in the local church records since her family were part of the Plymouth Brethren – a fairly radical sect of nonconformism which was popular in the south-west of England.
Elizabeth Cowley was born into a family of agricultural labourers and silk winders; silk-winding was shortly to become extinct in this particular area of the world, mostly due to cheaper wages elsewhere. During this time the village was also visited by recruiters from the USA, specifically Colorado – they were seeking skilled labourers who wished to find a new life in the New World.