I bought this CDV just a few weeks ago, and it is beautiful. I thought at the time it looked like a Wedding photo for the couple, and the bonus was that the seller had the couple’s full names on the description.

Photographed by Hopwood, Middlesbrough and Redcar, North Yorkshire. The couple are posed in a Victorian photographic studio, with the bride wearing a full crinoline style dress matching the late 1860s. The close, formal pose and dress are consistent with a wedding portrait taken at or shortly after the wedding. She looks so young, doesn’t she?

Armed with the couple’s full names, I started a tree for them on Ancestry.

Family History.

Theodosia Sophia Rhodes was born in July 1845 in the market town of Doncaster. Her parents, John Whitaker Rhodes, a Grocer, and Sophia Ravenhill, were both just twenty-four when she arrived, beginning her life in a young household full of promise. She was baptised shortly after, on 21 October 1845 at St George’s, Doncaster.

The family lived in the Market Place in Doncaster; her father, John, was a Grocer there for many years.

Her childhood unfolded entirely in Doncaster. A sister, Mary Heaton, arrived in 1849, followed by a brother, William Barnard, in 1851. Tragedy came early: William died in 1854 when Theodosia was just eight years old, a loss that must have marked her young heart. Census records from 1851 and 1861 place Theodosia still at home, listed simply as “daughter,” growing up in a household shaped by both affection and grief.

A deeper sorrow followed in 1862, when her father, John, died suddenly at the age of forty-three. Theodosia was only seventeen. With her father gone and her mother widowed, she stepped into adulthood earlier than most.

At twenty-three, on 16 July 1868, Theodosia married Samuel Hawkes Wright at St George’s Church in Doncaster. Their marriage would span three decades and anchor the busiest, most demanding years of her life. Within fifteen years, Theodosia gave birth to eleven children, an extraordinary feat even by Victorian standards.

Their first son, Cecil Barnard Wright, was born in May 1869, followed quickly by Leonard Heaton in 1870. Just months later, in January 1871, Theodosia lost her mother, Sophia, a painful moment as she herself was becoming a mother. That same year, December 1871, she welcomed her first daughter, Edith Sophia.

The household grew steadily: Walter Hawkes (1873), Sydney Turfitt (1874), and Peter Rhodes (1876). Peter lived less than a year, dying in January 1877. More children followed: Samuel Rhodes (1880), Theodosia Ravenhill (1881), twins Mabel Adelaide and Mary Evelyn (1882), and finally Margaret Petchell in 1884.

But joy was repeatedly tempered by loss. Samuel Rhodes died at just three years old in 1883. Later, in 1895, her adult son Leonard died at the age of twenty-five. By then, Theodosia had already carried more grief than many endure in a lifetime.

In 1899, after thirty years of marriage, her husband, Samuel, died at fifty-six, leaving Theodosia widowed with a large family and a lifetime of responsibility behind her. Despite this, she remained resilient. Census records show her as head of the household, first in Doncaster and later in Thorne, where she spent her later years.

The early twentieth century brought quieter sorrows. Her sister Mary died in 1902, closing the chapter on Theodosia’s childhood family. By 1911 and again in 1921, she was listed as widowed, living independently, eventually described simply as retired, a woman who had earned her rest.

Theodoria Sophia Wright, 75 Years 11 Months.

Cecil Barnard, 52 years 1 month.

Theodosia Ravenhill, 39 years 9 months.

Mary Evelyn, 38 years 6 months.

Mabel Adelaide, 38 years 6 months.

Her sister-in-law, Sarah Truefitt Wright, aged 78 years 4 months was also living with Theodosia in 1921.

After nearly eighty years rooted in Yorkshire soil, Theodosia Sophia Rhodes died on 17 June 1925, returning at the end of her life to Doncaster, where she was buried a few days later. Probate was granted in January 1926, marking the final administrative echo of a long and full life.

She had lived through the Victorian era, the turn of a new century, and the upheaval of the Great War. She was a daughter, sister, wife, mother of eleven, and matriarch to generations beyond her, including grandchildren. Above all, Theodosia’s life tells a quiet but powerful story of endurance, devotion, and strength in the face of repeated loss, one woman’s steady presence across nearly eight decades of English family history.

Samuel Hawkes Wright was born in July 1842 in the small Lincolnshire market town of Spilsby, the first years of his life shaped by rural England and a close-knit family. His father, Turfitt Wright, a Railway Clerk, was just twenty-five, and his mother, Mary Wray, twenty-nine, when Samuel arrived. He grew up alongside younger siblings, welcoming his sister Sarah Turfitt in 1844 and his brother Alfred in 1851, learning early what it meant to be an older brother.

By the age of nine, Samuel was living in Wainfleet All Saints, recorded in the 1851 census as a son in his parents’ household. Sometime before he turned twenty, Samuel made a significant move north with his family, settling in Doncaster, where he was recorded in 1861, still living as a son but already laying the foundations of his working life as a Solicitor’s Clerk.

At twenty-six, Samuel married Theodosia Sophia Rhodes in July 1868 at St George’s, Doncaster. Their marriage marked the beginning of a remarkably full household with eleven children being born to the couple.

Census records show Samuel firmly established as head of the household by 1871, and by 1881, he was working as an accountant, supporting his large family in Doncaster. Life was busy, demanding, and often joyful, but also marked by heartbreak.

Despite these losses, Samuel remained rooted in Doncaster, appearing in records through 1891, 1895, and 1898, always listed as head of the household. His life was one of steady work, family duty, and quiet perseverance, typical of many Victorian fathers, yet no less meaningful for its ordinariness.

Samuel Hawkes Wright died on 10 April 1899, aged 56, in Doncaster. He was buried two days later at Christ Church, and probate was granted in Wakefield that June. His death left Theodosia widowed, and the family changed forever, but his legacy lived on through the many children he helped raise.

Samuel’s story is one of movement, from rural Lincolnshire to industrial Yorkshire, of responsibility assumed early, and of a life spent providing for and anchoring a large family. Though his years were fewer than his wife’s, the imprint he left on his children and on the generations that followed was lasting and profound.

Here’s the link for the small public family tree for the couple on Ancestry: Rhodes/Wright Family

You can contact me either by commenting here or via email at lynnswaffles@gmail.com. 

Till next time then………