The Life of Thomas Laidler and Sarah Alcock

Thomas Laidler and Sarah Alcock

Thomas Laidler was born on Sunday, 16 November 1856, in Zetland Street, Monkwearmouth, Sunderland, Durham, the son of Robert Laidler (1823–1886) and Phillis Drysdale (1826–). He was baptised in Monkwearmouth on 27 November 1856.

Thomas was born into a community that was already being transformed by the rapid industrial growth of Sunderland. During the nineteenth century, Monkwearmouth stood on the northern side of the River Wear and was closely connected with Sunderland’s expanding coal, shipbuilding and engineering industries. The river, docks, shipyards and associated workshops provided employment for thousands of local families, but industrial prosperity came with difficult living and working conditions.

Growing up in Monkwearmouth

Thomas spent his childhood in Zetland Street, where the 1861 census records him at the age of four as a scholar in a household of eight people. His childhood would have been spent in a densely populated neighbourhood where houses stood close together and families often lived within a short walk of the workshops, factories and shipyards that dominated the local economy.

Working-class housing in nineteenth-century Monkwearmouth was generally modest. Streets were commonly made up of small terraced houses, cottages and back-to-back or closely packed properties, with limited living space for large families. A typical house might have contained a kitchen or living room downstairs, with one or two bedrooms above. Several members of an extended family could sometimes share the same property, and sanitary arrangements and ventilation were considerably poorer than would be expected today.

For families such as the Laidlers, home and work were closely connected to the industrial landscape around them. Coal smoke, the noise of industry, carts and horses, and the constant movement of people would have been familiar features of everyday life.

By 1871, fourteen-year-old Thomas was living at 5 Hedworth Place and was recorded as a blacksmith. This is an important indication of the direction his working life was already taking. At an age when many working-class boys left school, Thomas entered a skilled industrial occupation.

Thomas the blacksmith

Blacksmithing was an essential trade in an industrial town such as Sunderland. A blacksmith worked with heated iron, using a forge, anvil, hammers and other tools to shape metal into useful components. In a town dominated by shipbuilding and engineering, there was a constant demand for men capable of working iron.

Thomas’s later occupation as a blacksmith striker gives an even greater insight into his working life. The striker was an important member of the blacksmithing team. While the principal blacksmith held and positioned the hot metal, the striker used a heavy hammer to deliver powerful blows at the direction of the blacksmith. It was physically demanding work requiring strength, timing and experience.

The working environment would have been hot, noisy and dirty. A forge could become extremely hot, particularly during long shifts, and the continual striking of metal produced a deafening industrial rhythm. Thomas would have worked surrounded by smoke, sparks, heat and metal dust.

His work also placed him firmly within the wider industrial workforce that supported Sunderland’s shipbuilding economy. Even when a man was not directly employed in a shipyard, trades such as blacksmithing, engineering, riveting and general labouring were vital to the construction and maintenance of ships.

In June 1878, at the age of twenty-two, Thomas was described as a blacksmith and was living in Monkwearmouth. His occupation had therefore become established by early adulthood.

Marriage to Sarah Alcock

On Monday, 10 June 1878, Thomas married Sarah Alcock at All Saints Church, Monkwearmouth. Thomas was twenty-one or twenty-two, depending upon the precise age calculation from his recorded birth date, while Sarah was twenty-one. The witnesses were Thomas Alcock and Elizabeth Reynolds.

All Saints was an important place of worship within the Monkwearmouth community and would have been a familiar landmark for local families. For Thomas and Sarah, their marriage marked the beginning of a family life that would eventually include eleven children.

Sarah had been born on Saturday, 17 January 1857, at 18 Hedworth Place, the daughter of John Alcock and Sarah Broom. Her childhood, like Thomas’s, had been spent within the crowded working-class neighbourhoods of Monkwearmouth.

After their marriage the couple established their home at 1 Back Dundas Street, where the 1881 census records twenty-four-year-old Thomas as a labourer. This change in occupational description may indicate that he was working in a less specialised capacity at that particular time, or undertaking general industrial work between periods of skilled employment.

Their first years of marriage were undoubtedly demanding. The couple were starting a family at a time when wages for industrial workers could be modest and employment could fluctuate with the fortunes of Sunderland’s shipbuilding and engineering industries.

The arrival of their children

Their first child, Robert Laidler, was born around April 1879. A daughter, Sarah Laidler, followed around April 1881, although tragically she survived for less than a year and died at 1 The Causeway in January 1882.

The loss of a young child was sadly common in Victorian Britain. Infant and childhood mortality remained high, particularly in densely populated industrial communities where overcrowding, poor sanitation, infectious diseases and inadequate nutrition could all contribute to early death. The exact cause of little Sarah’s death has not been provided in the surviving information, so it cannot be stated with certainty what illness took her life.

Another son, Thomas Laidler, was born at 1 The Causeway on 3 November 1882.

The family subsequently lived at a number of addresses around Monkwearmouth, reflecting the movement that was common among working families as their circumstances, employment and family size changed.

By 1891, Thomas and Sarah were living at 12 Barrington Street, with a household of nine people. Thomas, now thirty-four, was recorded as a blacksmith striker.

This was probably one of the busiest periods of Thomas’s working life. Sunderland’s industrial economy depended upon men such as him. Shipbuilding required an enormous workforce, from highly skilled craftsmen to labourers, riveters, platers, engineers, joiners and the many trades that supplied and serviced the yards.

Life in Barrington Street

Barrington Street became particularly significant to the Laidler family. It was not simply a temporary address; it remained associated with the family for many years.

The houses in this part of Monkwearmouth would have been typical of the closely built urban housing occupied by industrial families. A small terraced property might contain a living room and kitchen downstairs and sleeping accommodation above, with very little private outdoor space. With a growing family, such a house could quickly become crowded.

Water, sanitation and drainage were continuing concerns in many nineteenth-century working-class districts. Improvements were gradually made during the Victorian period, but living conditions could remain difficult, particularly for large families.

In October 1895, Thomas was recorded as a labourer at an engine works, demonstrating once again the variety of industrial employment available to him. His experience as a blacksmith would have made him well suited to engineering work, where metalworking skills were highly valued.

That same year, on 22 August 1895, his daughter Elizabeth Laidler was born at 12 Barrington Street.

The family’s household continued to grow, but tragedy was also becoming an all-too-familiar part of their lives.

A family marked by loss

Thomas and Sarah had eleven children, but the 1911 census records that only five were living, meaning that six children had died.

Their children were:

• Robert Laidler, born about 1879; died in Monkwearmouth Hospital on 17 May 1922, aged 43.
• Sarah Laidler, born about 1881; died at 1 The Causeway in January 1882.
• Thomas Laidler, born 3 November 1882; died in General Hospital on 6 December 1965, aged 83.
• Phillis Laidler, born about 1885; died at 16 Barrington Street on 21 November 1935, aged 50.
• Isabella Laidler, born 1 June 1887; died in Sunderland around April 1963, aged 75.
• Margery Laidler, born about June 1887; died at 106 Church Street in October 1887.
• Mary Ann Laidler, born about October 1889; died at 12 Barrington Street in July 1892, aged 2.
• James Edward Laidler, born 14 December 1891; died at 44 Millum Terrace in March 1953, aged 61.
• Sarah Laidler, born about January 1893; died in South Shields around October 1969, aged 76.
• Elizabeth Laidler, born 22 August 1895; died in General Hospital on 6 October 1962, aged 67.
• Catherine Laidler, born about December 1897; died at 48 Millum Terrace in March 1919, aged only 21.

The deaths of Sarah, Margery and Mary Ann were particularly poignant because all three were young children. Catherine’s death at just twenty-one would have been another devastating loss for her parents. 

Although the causes of death for these children are not included in the information available here, their deaths should be viewed within the context of the period. Infectious diseases such as tuberculosis, pneumonia, scarlet fever, diphtheria and other illnesses could spread rapidly through crowded communities. Childhood illnesses that are now routinely treated or prevented could once be fatal.

Millum Terrace and the changing family

By 1901, Thomas and Sarah were living at 51 Millum Terrace, with a household of eleven people. Thomas, aged forty-four, was now described as a general labourer.

The change from blacksmith striker to general labourer may suggest that he was no longer employed in a specialised blacksmithing position, although census occupations do not always capture the full nature of a person’s working life. At this stage he would have had decades of experience of heavy industrial work behind him.

By 1911 the family were living at 53 Marley’s Buildings, Millum Terrace, where Thomas, aged fifty-four, was described as a ship plater’s helper.  This occupation again placed him directly within Sunderland’s shipbuilding world.

A ship plater worked with the large iron or steel plates used to construct the hulls of ships. The work involved measuring, positioning, shaping and securing heavy metal plates. As a helper, Thomas would have assisted skilled platers with the physically demanding preparation and handling of these enormous pieces of metal.

The work was strenuous and potentially hazardous. Shipyard workers dealt with heavy materials, machinery, fire, heat, noise and working at height. Thomas’s working life therefore reflected the dangerous and physically demanding nature of Sunderland’s industrial economy.

The impact of Sunderland’s shipbuilding industry

During Thomas’s lifetime, Sunderland became one of the world’s great shipbuilding centres. The River Wear was lined with shipyards and industrial works, and ships built locally travelled throughout the world.

For working families, the shipyards provided opportunities for employment but also created a way of life shaped around industrial labour. Men often worked long hours in demanding conditions, while wives and children maintained the household on wages that could be stretched considerably when several children needed feeding and clothing.

The prosperity generated by shipbuilding was therefore very unevenly experienced. Sunderland could be a prosperous industrial town while many of its workers continued to live in modest housing and faced insecurity, injury and illness.

Thomas’s employment history — blacksmith, labourer, blacksmith striker, engine-works labourer, general labourer and ship plater’s helper — tells the story of a man whose working life was closely tied to this industrial world.

The First World War years

Thomas was already in his late fifties when the First World War began in 1914. By then, Sunderland’s shipbuilding industry had become strategically important to the war effort. Shipyards along the River Wear produced vessels needed by Britain during the conflict.

Men who worked in shipbuilding and associated industries contributed to the war effort through their labour, even if they did not serve in the armed forces themselves. Thomas’s experience as a ship plater’s helper would have been particularly relevant during a period when the construction and repair of ships were of national importance.

The war also brought profound changes to communities such as Monkwearmouth, with families facing military service, loss, shortages and uncertainty.

Tragically, the family suffered another loss shortly after the war. Catherine Laidler, Thomas and Sarah’s youngest child, died at 48 Millum Terrace in March 1919, aged just twenty-one. Her death came only months after the end of the First World War and during a period when Britain was also experiencing the devastating influenza pandemic. Without the death certificate or further evidence, however, it would not be safe to assume that influenza was Catherine’s cause of death.

Thomas’s final years

By 1920, Thomas and Sarah were living at 18 Barrington Street, returning to an address close to the family’s earlier home.

Thomas was recorded as a shipyard labourer, continuing to work in the industry that had shaped much of his adult life.

He died at 18 Barrington Street on 2 September 1920, aged sixty-three. His recorded cause of death was cancer of the mouth.

Cancer treatment in 1920 was very different from that available today. There was a limited understanding of many cancers, and treatment options were considerably restricted. Surgery could sometimes be attempted, but radiotherapy was still in its early development and modern chemotherapy did not exist.

For a man who had spent much of his life in physically demanding industrial employment, his final illness must have been particularly difficult. The available record does not tell us how long he had been ill, but the fact that he died at home suggests that his final days were spent surrounded by his family and in the familiar surroundings of Barrington Street.

Thomas was buried at Mere Knolls Cemetery, Fulwell, on 6 September 1920, in Ward 13, Section A, Grave 3591.

Sarah’s later years

After Thomas’s death, Sarah continued to live in Barrington Street. The 1921 census records her at 18 Barrington Street, aged sixty-four and widowed, with one other member of the household. Her occupation was given as home duties.

Sarah had spent more than forty years as Thomas’s wife and had raised eleven children, while enduring the deaths of six of them. By this stage, she had experienced the enormous changes that had transformed Sunderland during her lifetime — from the Victorian expansion of the industrial town, through the growth of shipbuilding, to the First World War and its aftermath.

Sarah died at 16 Barrington Street on 8 June 1929, aged seventy-two.

Her death was recorded in the Sunderland Echo and Shipping Gazette on 10 June 1929:

The notice records that her funeral cortege left her home at 1pm for a service at Hallgarth Square Mission, before continuing to Mere Knolls Cemetery, where she was buried on 12 June 1929 in Ward 25, Section A, Grave 5442.

The wording of the notice — particularly “the beloved wife of the late Thomas Laidler” and “deeply mourned by her family” — gives a small but touching glimpse into the affection felt for Sarah by those she left behind.

Remembering Thomas and Sarah

The story of Thomas and Sarah Laidler is much more than a list of census entries, addresses, occupations and dates. Their records provide a window into the lives of an ordinary working family living through an extraordinary period of change.

Thomas’s life followed the path of a nineteenth-century industrial worker. From his beginnings as a young blacksmith, he moved through the many forms of labour that sustained Sunderland’s engineering and shipbuilding industries. He worked with metal, machinery and ships and spent much of his life contributing to the industries that made Sunderland famous.

Sarah’s life was centred largely around the home and family. Together they raised their children in the closely packed streets of Monkwearmouth, moving between places such as Zetland Street, Hedworth Place, Back Dundas Street, The Causeway, Barrington Street and Millum Terrace.

Behind those addresses were homes filled with the ordinary sounds and struggles of family life — children being born, growing up, going to work, marriages taking place and, sadly, funerals leaving the same streets.

Perhaps the most poignant part of their story is the number of children they lost. Of their eleven children, six had died by the time of the 1911 census. These were losses that would have touched every part of their family life.

Thomas died in 1920, followed nine years later by Sarah. Both were ultimately laid to rest at Mere Knolls Cemetery, leaving behind descendants whose family history can still be traced through the records they left behind.

Their story is therefore not simply the story of Thomas Laidler and Sarah Alcock. It is also the story of working-class Monkwearmouth, of the men who built and supported Sunderland’s ships, of the women who kept their households together, and of families who endured both the opportunities and hardships brought by industrial Britain.

Today, the addresses recorded in their records may appear simply as names on a family tree. But each one represents a place where Thomas and Sarah once lived, worked, raised their children, mourned their losses and made their lives. Through those records, the streets of nineteenth- and early twentieth-century Monkwearmouth become part of their story — and part of the story of the family that came after them.