Pulvis et umbra sumus - we are dust and shadows

One of my guilty pleasures is pottering around graveyards with my fellow taphophile (someone who takes an interest in graveyards, tombstones etc), Mrs P. I don't just see them as places where dead people are laid to rest. I see them as places with lots of information stored around you. They are like libraries. I look at the headstones and I imagine all the people lying there and the stories that are yet to be discovered and told. You never quite know where a headstone is going to take you. And here’s a local example.

How many people have visited Stoke Climsland church and have wondered about the ‘Wilton headstone’ to the left of the path? I certainly have and, recently, my curiosity got the better of me and I sent off for copies of the relevant death certificates. Thus unfolded a Victorian tragedy.

The headstone for three members of the Wilton family. You can’t miss it on the left as you head towards the church porch.

The full inscription reads:
In loving memory of Eliza Wilton. Died Feb 1st 1870, Aged 45.
William Wilton. Died June 11th 1906, Aged 80.
William H Wilton. Died Feb 20th 1870, Aged 17.
Ellen Wilton. Infant. Died Feb 20th 1870.

When I first read this inscription, I thought it was yet another example of the ravages of one of the infectious diseases prevalent in Victorian England. Cholera, perhaps? Or Smallpox?

Eliza Wilton's death certificate gives the cause of death as  'Constitutional debility, Milk fever, Congestive Pneumonia'. Although she did not die in childbirth, given the age of her daughter, it was only some three months after. The trio of causes suggest that, irrespective of any consequences of childbirth, she was generally in very poor health, probably due to poor living conditions and the poverty that came with being the wife of a tin mining labourer. She had had five previous children and that could not have helped her general health.

Ellen Wilton died when she was just 6 months old, some three months after the demise of her mother. The causes of her death are given as 'Debility from birth, Pneumonia, Phthisis'. It sounds as if she was poorly from birth and soon succumbed to bronchial infections. Although it's not mentioned specifically, tuberculosis was probably present. Given the poor health of her mother, Ellen had a very bad start to her all-too-short life and no chance to thrive. Her date of death is given 26th April 1870 and not February 20th 1870 as shown on the headstone.

William Henry Wilton, the eldest son of William and Eliza Wilton, died of 'Inflammation of the lungs'. A fairly non-specific diagnosis but highly suggestive of Tuberculosis.

At the outset, I had assumed that all three had died of an infectious disease, such as cholera. I was wrong in the specifics but correct in the generality. But I think it was more than disease that killed them, it was the sheer grinding poverty of their conditions and lack of access to decent healthcare. And they were not the only ones living like this. A true Victorian tragedy. In another time, we might have known them as they lived just down the road from us in Downgate.

I have no idea what happened to the family after their mother died but I do know that William remarried in 1871, about 12 months after Eliza had died. Given that he had five children to look after, I suppose it's not surprising that William found another wife so soon.