MARY, LYDIA, AND SARAH ELLEN HUNT

of LITTLE WOOLTON: SCHOOL MISTRESSES

They were daughters of Alexander Hunt and Betty (nee Hardy) they married St Mary Stockport 19 November 1787. Alexander Hunt was a Cotton Merchant of Stockport and Chapel en la Frith, Derbyshire.

Mary was baptised at St Mary, Stockport 20 December 1794
Lydia was baptised at Chapel en la Frith 19 July 1806
Sarah Ellen was baptised Chapel en la Frith 11 February 1812.

Other children of the above marriage were:
Elizabeth 1789
Alexander 1791
William 1792
Alexander 1796
Thomas 1798
Ann 1800
Henry 1804

It is known from an Indenture dated 1837 found at Cheshire Record Office that Alexander Hunt Snr was one of a 5th part of an Indenture including Thomas Nicholson of Stockport. This related to a property in Bredbury, Cheshire. The Nicholson family of Gateacre were Unitarian, it would appear that the Hunt sisters may have been brought to Gateacre, by a member of the Nicholson family, to set up their school in Gateacre. Mary Hunt was there and she had a Preparatory School by 1833.

In the Liverpool 'Mercury' newspaper an advertisement is found under the heading 'Education' dated 4 January 1833:-

Miss Hunt respectively informs her friends that her Preparatory School for young Gentlemen will re-open on Wednesday 30th January, 1833.
Gateacre 1 January 1833

The 1841 census return shows the three sisters: Mary aged 45 ys Lydia aged 30 years and Sarah Ellen aged 25 years were living at 'Shrubbery House' and all said to be 'School Mistresses'. Shrubbery House has not been found on any map of Little Woolton. Next to them on the census was living the Greenough family - who were Stone Masons living in 'Stone Cottages' Belle Vale Road. There were 20 young gentlemen all under the age of ten years as the enumerator entered on the entry. Unfortunately part of this census entry was torn at the base, and some of the names of the boys cannot be read. But names that can be seen are:-

Thomas Arnold Carr, Henry Bayley, Francis Phillips, George H Phillips, John Curry, Thomas W Roberts, William Henry, John Jones, George Bolton, Gavin Tood, Joshua F Lace, Thomas Edward Hunt, Edmund Muspratt, William Molyneux, Hugh Mather, Benjamin Crossley, Robert Clifford Hunt.

Continued . . .