The Parental Neglect of Samuel and Annie Nicholson - Napier Street Sheffield 1903

When I received the call yesterday asking me to appear on BBC Radio Sheffield (see previous blog) I was just finishing this article and posting it to the site 

THE PARENTAL NEGLECT OF SAMUEL AND ANNIE NICHOLSON - SHEFFIELD AUGUST 1903

"My great grandfather's eldest brother WILLIAM HENRY SANBY married an ANN MACKEVOY in 1871 and during the course of their marriage had five children. As ANN was from an Irish family, the children were brought up in the Catholic faith. The eldest was a daughter who was born on 24th April 1872 and named after her mother ANN ELIZA SANBY.

I was researching material on Ancestry when I came across this entry from the Court Books of Sheffield - 25th August 1903. A researcher had placed this information in her family tree next to the entry for ANN ELIZA SANBY. Her married name was NICHOLSON by the way...."   

You can read about my reaction in the article! But thankfully for my sanity it was a case of a person not following the case through and as a result they ended up with a case of mistaken indentity. 

But once I had established the facts (and they were very sobering ones indeed) there were a number of surprises in the aftermath of the 1903 child neglect case especially regarding the fate of Samuel and Annie's eldest son Frederick Joseph Nicholson.