Family History

Sex : Female

Date of Birth : 5th April 1842

Place of Birth : Hitchin, Hertfordshire

Date of Death : 1922

Place of Death : Hitchin, Hertfordshire

Number of Children : 10

Fanny Worbey was born on 5th April 1842 at Hitchin in Hertfordshire. The family did not live in the town itself but at a place called The Riddy, an isolated hamlet in the south-eastern part of Hitchin parish surrounded by agricultural land. When Fanny was born there were only open fields between The Riddy and her grandparents' home at Walsworth, but when she was eight years old the railway which would become the Great Northern Railway was built through the area. The Riddy lay west of the railway whilst Walsworth lay to the east, with only one bridge under the railway at Wymondley Road. On 29th September 1860, aged 18, Fanny was married at St Mary's in Hitchin to an agricultural labourer named Thomas Moles. He was 22 when they married and was originally from the village of Willian, a couple of miles east of Hitchin. Less than six weeks after their marriage, Fanny and Thomas had their first child baptised: a boy named John Thomas Moles. The 1861 census finds Fanny and Thomas with baby John living at The Riddy next door to Fanny's father and two younger siblings. The house next door but one which had been her uncle Thomas's ten years earlier was now occupied by another uncle, James Worbey. Sadly, Fanny's son John died when he was only six months old. The following year, Fanny and Thomas had a daughter, Eliza, but she too died when only a few months old. Some time around the mid 1870s, the family left The Riddy. Indeed, The Riddy disappears altogether as a place between 1871 and 1881. No trace of The Riddy has been found in the 1881 census. Where the buildings stood (as depicted on the 1844 Tithe Map for Hitchin) is shown as open fields on the 1881 Ordnance Survey 1:2500 map. Riddy Lane, which led from the town to The Riddy, became a footpath rather than a road. Fanny and Thomas's new home was The Folly, about half a mile south west of The Riddy. This was a hamlet to the south of Hitchin mostly on the main road from Hitchin to Stevenage. It had grown up around a brick field and gravel pits. It was a sufficiently populous area to have its own small infant school, Sunnyside School. Fanny and Thomas's children attended Sunnyside School until they were about eight years old, when they transferred to the British Schools over the hill in the town of Hitchin. Fanny and Thomas lived at a cottage called Osierbed Cottage (sometimes also referred to as The Common or Ippollitts Folly), which was a reasonable sized home, having nine rooms. It was individually marked on the 1881 Ordnance Survey 1:2,500 map and stood on the south side of Blackhorse Lane close to where the street The Paddock was built in the 1970s. As Blackhorse Lane is the parish boundary between Hitchin and St Ippolyts, Osierbed Cottage was just in the parish of St Ippolyts rather than Hitchin. An osier bed is a place where willows are grown for basket making, and Osierbed Cottage stood on the banks of Ippollitts Brook where willows grow. A modern street called The Willows stands a little east of the site of Osierbed Cottage. On 27th November 1895, Fanny's husband Thomas died from traumatic 24 hour tetanus. He was 57 years old, whilst Fanny was 53 when he died. After Thomas's death, Fanny supported herself by working as a midwife and "monthly nurse". A monthly nurse would help out with the confinement and look after the new mother and her family for the first month after a new baby was born. Fanny was clearly well known for the work she did locally, and remembered for it long after her death. Emily Larman (1899-1996) remembered Fanny as "Granny Moles" when interviewed in 1990: Old Squibey Kingsley from The Grange was a smartly dressed man, a bit eccentric, carried a walking stick which he waved at the children. They were a bit nervous of him. He would often shout at them as they went by to fetch the midwife Granny Moles. She lived in a cottage just inside Blackhorse Lane. As she went by the children would say, "Granny Moles has brought a baby to Mrs So and So in her black bag." Emily Larman (nee Chalkley) (A Parish Remembers: Ippollitts 1900-1950, Ippollitts Local History Group, 1990) The 1901 census finds Fanny living at Osierbed Cottage with her son John (the only one of her surviving children who did not marry), her granddaughter Nellie, her recently married daughter Julia, Julia's husband William Dimmock and two of William's brothers. In 1907 the Dimmock family found itself touched by tragedy when William's sister Emily was murdered in Camden Town in London. The case was sensational news at the time, all the more so because the only person tried for the murder was acquitted. The case never has been solved. Fanny died at home at 5 Blackhorse Lane on 30th December 1922, aged 80. She was buried at Hitchin's municipal cemetery rather than alongside her husband at St Ippolyts: her move to the opposite side of the road meant she had lived in the wrong parish to be buried at St Ippolyts.

Thomas Moles ( 29th September 1860 - )

Children : John Thomas Moles - Eliza Moles - Herbert Moles - George Moles - John Moles - Annie Maria Moles - James Moles - Ernest Moles - Julia Moles - Minnie Moles

Relationship notes : Hitchin, Hertfordshire