The five children of
Crispin Pharaoh also lived in Eskdale and in Wasdale, the next valley.
Just one of them moved away from the country in the 1840's, and into the
west Cumbrian town of Egremont.
Egremont about
1890 |
| All the sons worked in the
fields, or as stone- masons. Although not all of them could write,
the oldest son, also called Crispin, had fine handwriting. He was an
enumerator in the 1841 census.
Marriage bond signed by Crispin Pharaoh
1815
|
|
The second Crispin Pharaoh died at
Netherwasdale in March 1851, shortly before the census was taken in that
year. He married twice, and had ten children. His two
brothers, John and Isaac, each had seven or eight children, although
several of them died when they were still young. |
|
This third generation spread out
over west Cumberland. Most of the men were still employed either
as farm labourers or stone-masons and builders, but some became miners in the Cumberland coalfields or iron mines.
This work caused some of them to
move to the expanding coalfields on the other side of the north of
England.
Whole families moved east to the
mining area around Gateshead, in County Durham. Others moved south
to Manchester, Liverpool or other Lancashire towns, where they continued
to work as builders.
Sometimes three generations of a
family moved away together from Cumberland, in search of
work.
Crispin Pharaoh,
1848-1928, Stonemason and his wife Hannah
(Photograph courtesy of Irton
Parochial Church Council)
|
|
This movement continued throughout
the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, as more and more people
moved from the country to work in the towns.
In the
fourth and fifth generations after the first Crispin Pharaoh, there were
major changes in how people in these families lived and
worked. Because they had received better education than their
forebears, many of them moved from manual work into clerical jobs in
industry or local government. Several became landlords of
pubs. Some of them decided to leave England and look for better
opportunities in the colonies overseas.
They went to Australia, New Zealand, South
Africa and Canada. Their descendants still live in these countries
today.
|
| In 2001, people who are
descended from the first Crispin Pharaoh live in many different parts of
Britain, as well as other parts of the world, and have all sorts of
occupations. Only a few of them still live in Cumbria. |
|
Netherwasdale, about 1900
There have been seven generations
so far since the first Crispin died nearly 200 years
ago. |
