Isabella (Brown) BOLTON 1835 - 1897

 

Isabella was born in Jedburgh, Scotland, to Lillias and William Brown. Her mother had ten children over 20 years and Isabella was #9. Her father William was a stocking maker and he died of cholera when Isabella was 13 years. Her mother struggled to make ends meet and Isabella started work as a domestic servant to help her mother.

Isabella lost her job though when she fell pregnant. She was unmarried but her mother took her in and delivered the baby, named William after his grandfather. Isabella was determined that the father would marry her so that baby William would be legitimate. The father Roger Bolton took off (he had two other illegitimate children to another woman in Jedburgh) but Isabella tracked him down in England and they married when the child was 7 years of age.

There doesn't seem to have been a lot of love in the marriage and Roger was away at sea much of the time as he worked as a fireman on a ship. When Isabella fell pregnant for the second time she went home to Jedburgh and her mother delivered the baby who she named Lillias, after her mother.

Roger, Isabella, William and Lillias lived together for a time in Glasgow until William emigrated to Sydney. In 1894 Roger was mangled in a machine at work and two years later Isabella and Lillias emigrated to Perth, where William and his son were now living.

Isabella and Lillias arrived in Albany on 14 August 1896 and made their way to Perth. Unfortunately, Isabella contracted something and 8 months later she died of chronic diarrhoea. She is buried somewhere in East Perth cemetery - laid to rest by her two children.