Author: Peter Witham

Margaret Dobson

Miners’ Life 11

Margaret (Peggy) Dobson, born Margaret Hague (Haig) in East Herrington on 5th May 1794. She married Thomas Dobson in St. Lawrence Church, Pittington on the 13th March 1913. He worked as a farm labourer in the Shadforth area, then Elemore, Easington and finally Hetton. Thomas died in 1853 in Hetton. They had nine children. Daughter Mary married George Defty in 1859, they had a son called George, who also had a son called George who was born in 1889 and it is possible that this is the boy in the photograph. She died on the 14th August 1895 aged 104 while living with her daughter Mary, now a widow in Richard Street Hetton where she ran a green grocers/fruit shop. Mary lived until she was 80.
Her husband was a farmer’s hind who worked for 14s per week by working from seven in the morning to ten at night. Mrs Dobson lived in Hetton for 46 years and upt to five years of her death she was able to read without the use of spectacles.

Photograph and detail provided by Margaret’s great, great, great Grandson, Robert Shepherd. Included by courtesy of www. East Durham.co.uk web site