🎀👒Rosetta Row/Fisher🧤🧣👒

These are two more of my finds from the recent postcard fair, the ‘Festival of Cards’ at Junction 24, North Petherton, they weren’t actually together in the box of CDVs but I spotted the same writing and bought both.

Someone was very helpful and had written this lady’s name on the back, how fabulous. Rosetta Row was born in October 1854 in Dickleburgh, Norfolk, her father was Jonathan Row and her mother was Elizabeth Smyth/e. The extra information was very handy for me to start a small family tree with her adding a husband Fisher and another Newson.

Rosetta married William Baldry Fisher (1847-1890) on 15 April 1880 and they had one son together William Row Fisher born at the beginning of 1882.

From the census details I found that Rosetta was a Milliner before her marriage and William had a Fancy Drapers shop in Ipswich, so could this be how they met? Previous to his marriage, in the 1871 census I found him as a Salesman learning his chosen trade working at the very impressive Warwick House, Birmingham. This information and image is from the Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery’s Facebook page: “Warwick House was Birmingham’s first department store. Located on New Street, it was completed in 1839. It sold fabrics, ribbons, ready-made and tailored clothing and carpets“.

William Baldry Fisher died on 19 June 1890.

I found many advertisements for his shop before and after his death, So I would think it’s highly likely that Rosetta, as a Milliner before her marriage, and who also assisted her father Jonathan, who himself had a Grocer’s and Draper’s shop, had been running the shop for a while and very likely continued after his death.

I couldn’t find his death in the newspapers but below is just one of the adverts for his shop nearly a year after William’s death:

East Anglian Daily Times – Saturday 23 May 1891.

“W. B. FISHER, THE OLDEST-ESTABLISHED FANCY DRAPER IN IPSWICH, HAS JUST RECEIVED, DIRECT FROM LUTON, NOVELTIES IN STRAW HATS AND BONNETS, FOR SUMMER WEAR”

I wondered just why he had died so young, just 42, I had to know, so I got this digital death certificate for him:

What is cerebral spinal sclerosis? I asked Google: “The term “multiple sclerosis” refers to the many areas of scarring (sclerosis) that result from the destruction of the tissues that wrap around nerves (myelin sheath) in the brain and spinal cord. This destruction is called demyelination. These layers form the myelin sheath“.

Two years after her husband’s death, she then married Harry Cornelius Newson (1852-14 Nov 1914) a widower, who himself in 1871 was an assistant to his father Richard Abednego Newson, who on the 1881 census, also had a Grocer and Draper’s shop in Peasenhall, Suffolk and in addition to that he also described himself as a Builder.

At the time of Harry’s first marriage to Mary Ann Chandler (1846-1887) in 1880, he was a Draper, then after his wife’s death in 1887 on the 1891 census, Harry had a Grocery shop. Rosetta and Harry married in July 1892 in Ipswich, Suffolk. Harry also brought a young son, Frederick Robert Newson (1884-1955) to the marriage.

Rosetta died in April 1921 on 6 May 1921 at 6 Colonnade Gardens, Eastbourne, Sussex, although she lived at 6 Bakewell Road, Eastbourne. Her cause of death was 1. Auricular Fibrillation, a heart condition and 2. Senility.

She was just 66. L J Dallas was present at her death, who was that, was it a care home or a nursing home?

By Photographer Walter Azemberg Smith at this address in Brook Street, Ipswich from 1865-1883

So could this be Harry Cornelius Newson whom Rosetta married in 1892 or could it be her first husband William Baldry Fisher who died in 1890 or someone else in the family?

I believe this CDV was taken in the early 1880’s as the photographer left this studio in 1883.

William Baldry Fisher‘s parents had nine children that I have found so far, the eldest being Garnham Fisher (1833-18 Nov 1856), Garnham is an unusual name and he was named after his father Garnham Fisher (1803-29 Dec 1856), William’s grandfather also had the name Garnham Fisher (1770-1837). The name also got passed down by one of William’s siblings. When I looked into William‘s family a bit more it seemed that father and son had both died within a few weeks of each other at the end of 1856, were their deaths connected? Here are their digital death certificates, first William‘s eldest brother Garnham on 18 November 1856

Cause of death: Acute Phthisis, 5 weeks. ‘Phthisis’ TB, Tuberculosis, also known as Consumption back then.

Cause of death: Diseased Liver, some years, Dropsy 28 days. Due to Alcohol abuse? Oedema, also known as fluid retention, dropsy, hydropsy and swelling, is the build-up of fluid in the body’s tissue.

Rosetta’s descendants.

Rosetta and William‘s family are above and their son William Row Fisher‘s family is below. Both are taken from the public family tree I have compiled on Ancestry, it’s not huge about 80 people, and several of the couple’s family had two marriages, which made it interesting sorting out whose children belonged to who. The direct link here: Fisher & R Row Family Tree

Here’s the family off to Australia in the summer of 1911. Did Rosetta and her only child ever get to see each other before she died in 1921 I wonder.

Tragically one of their little daughters Kathleen Mary Fisher died in Australia in 1917, just six years old. It seems that their other daughter Joan May came back to the UK as an adult at some point as I have her getting married to Dennis Malcolm Denton in 1950 in her home County of Bedfordshire, it looks like they had one son in the 1950s and he married, did he have children?

In the 1891 census below for 23 Lower Brook Street, Ipswich, Suffolk, we find Rosetta with her young son, a sister Elizabeth and a few others! Some who worked at the Fancy Drapers shop she had with her husband.