Our People - Margaret Addison

Dewhirst's Cuerden Mill, Bamber Bridge.  The mill lodge can be seen at the bottom right of this image.
Image courtesy of Britain from Above 
One summers day in 1917, Margaret Addison (nee Brockbank), a 30 year old woman from the Withy Trees area of Bamber Bridge, took her 7 year old son John to Cuerden Mill.  Once there, she pinned her hat to the ground, tied John to her and waded out into the mill lodge.  Both drowned with John struggling in vain to free himself from his bonds.  No one knows what was going on in her mind at the time. Nobody can second guess what her feelings were, or why she killed John as well as herself.  It could have been a 'cry for help' - her hat had been carefully pinned to the ground, presumably so it did not blow away, maybe marking where she had entered the lodge.  She had earlier said to friends and relatives that she was contemplating harming herself.  

In the months leading up to her death, Maggie had a mystery correspondence with a woman from Preston.  The woman was writing to Maggie at her work address, Bamber Bridge Spinning and Weaving Company, Wesley Street, Bamber Bridge.  It was maybe because Maggie did not want her mother to know about whatever was in the letters.  The inquest also heard from Maggie's mother that she would often go and stay with friends at Preston.  It would seem these letters were read by other people at the mill, leading to some kind of fallout.  There was gossip, and in a small(ish) place like Bamber Bridge, such gossip can be extremely hurtful. 

Her husband, William had left Bamber Bridge in 1911 to join with his family in Fall River, Massachusetts, U.S.A. - they had gone across a year earlier.  Many thousands of people from Lancashire had moved to the United States between the years after the American Civil War and before the Great War. They settled in the mill towns of Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, Maine and New Hampshire.  WIlliam had been in the Army earlier in his life around 1901 and it would seem that he was charged with desertion at that time. By the time of Maggie's death, he was serving with the Essex Regiment, having been with the Loyal North Lancashires before that. We can't read too much in William's going away to America and leaving Maggie at home - many male migrants go away to a foreign country for work and send money home - maybe this was what William was doing.

In her last hours, Maggie was seen on Bamber Bridge Railway Station, bound, so she said, for Liverpool and thence to America, probably to join with William's family.  She never made that trip. 
CUERDEN TRAGEDY.
Mother and Son Found Drowned in MIll Lodge.
INQUEST EVIDENCE & VERDICT.
“MURDER & SUICIDE WHILE INSANE” AGAINST THE WOMAN.

At Bamber Bridge, on Saturday, Mr. J. Parker held an inquest concerning the deaths of Margaret Addison (30) and her son John (7), whose bodies were found in a mill lodge at Cuerden on Friday morning.
Mrs. Ann Brockbank, widow, 9, Withy-grove, Bamber Bridge, said her daughter’s husband was a soldier.  He was last on furlough about 12 months ago, and was on good terms with his wife when he went away.  Letters had passed between them since, the contents of which witness did not know.  Her daughter had never threatened to do anything to herself, but she had been quieter than usual since she had some dispute at the mill where she worked.  Deceased’s husband was in the Essex Regiment, and was in Egypt.
Witness last saw her daughter alive on Friday, July 13th, when she went to work, leaving her daughter in the house.  When she returned about 3 45 that afternoon her daughter had gone away.  She did not report her daughter’s absence to the police, thinking she might have gone to visit a friend at Preston.
James Parker, fireman at Cuerden Mill, said about 4 50 on Tuesday morning last he found a woman’s hat, pinned to the ground with three hatpins, on the embankment of Cuerden Mill lodge.  The hat was put in the watch-house window at the mill, where everybody going in and out could see it, but nobody claimed it.  Yesterday morning, as witness was going to work about 4 50, he saw something in the water of the lodge, which proved to be the bodies of the two deceased.  He informed Henry Dixon, the night watchman at the mill, who recovered the bodies.
Dixon said the two bodies were fastened together by means of a long scarf which originally appeared to have been tied round the waists of both the woman and the boy.
Isabella Woods, married woman, 7, Hodson-street, Bamber Bridge, said that when she was returning from Preston last Monday night by the 10 10 train to Bamber Bridge she saw Maggie Addison who told her she was going to Liverpool on the 10 30 train, and thence to America.  She said she was “sick of here” and was heartbroken.  SHe did not know that she contemplated anything like what she had done, though she told Mrs. Whallet, with whom witness lived, that she might do something to herself and Mrs. Whalley told deceased to get such thoughts out of her head.
Pressed by the Coroner, witness said deceased was heartbroken because she said folks were talking about her, that she was not comfortable at home, and that she had had some bother at the mill concerning her work.
The Coroner:  Did she make any complaint about her husband? - No.
Was she happy in her married life? - I could not say.
Witness said deceased told her about a fortnight ago that she would do away with herself, but witness did not believe her.
In reply to the foreman of the jury, witness said she did not know that Mrs. Addison used to receive at the mill letters addressed to her in her maiden name.  On one occasion when deceased was not at the mill a registered letter was brought into the place in which she worked.  She saw the address of that letter, and the name upon it was “Addison.”  Deceased used to tell witness about getting letters from Nellie Taylor, a young woman she knew at Preston.
The Coroner: It was a woman? - Yes.  I used to read those.
Margaret Whalley, of 7, Hodson-street, Bamber Bridge, deposed to deceased coming to her house last Monday and talking of taking a house in Preston.  She said she would call again, but did not.  Two or three weeks since deceased told witness that she had heard so many tales “that they will be finding me at the bottom of a pit.”
P.C. Meadows, of the county police, said that in the woman’s clothing there was 9 and a half d., an Army ring paper, a knife, five handkerchiefs, and a comb.
The jury returned a verdict of “Wilful murder and suicide whilst temporarily insane” against the
woman. LANCASHIRE DAILY POST, 21 July, 1917
​Charles O'Donnell
Please email the project with any amendments or corrections 
Edited 20 November 2016
Sources
​1901 Census of England via Ancestry.co.uk / 1911 Census of England via Ancestry.co.uk / British Army WWI Medal Rolls Index Cards, 1914-1920 via Ancestry.co.uk / Lancashire Daily Post via British Newspaper Archive / 9th Battalion Cheshire Regiment War Diaries via Ancestry.co.uk
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