Josiah Sanderson

Josiah Sanderson was the son of Thomas Sanderson and Rebekah/Rebecca Jane Moore who married in the Basford registration district in 1876. Their children included: Josiah (b.1877) and Mary Ann E. (b.1890). the Sanderson family lived at 2 West Row, Basford [C.1881]; 3 Prior Terrace, Basford [C.1891]; 5 West Row, Basford [C.1901]. Frustratingly the Sanderson don’t appear to be listed in the 1911 census. Thomas Sanderson who gained employment as a general labourer [C.1881]; coal miner [C.1891]; labourer at gas works [C.1901], died at Nottingham, aged 67, in 1923. His widow, who had latterly spelt her first name as Rebecca Jane, died at Nottingham in 1926, aged 76. Josiah Sanderson was not in the 1901 census presumably because he was fighting out in South Africa. Quite why he was not listed in the 1911 census is unclear. However we pick him up again when in 1914, at the age of 36, he got married. His spouse was a Mary Elizabeth Hills, a widow, with seven children. Mary Elizabeth Marson had married John Hills in the Basford registration district in 1895. Their children were: William (b.1897), Lily (b.1899), Daniel Arthur (b.1902), John (b.1904), Leslie (b.1911) and Josiah (b.1912). At the time of the 1911 census the Hills were living at 10 Hague Street, Radford [C.1911]. Josiah Hills was actually born in Doncaster in 1912 and given that he bears the same name as his future step-father, it may be that marital disharmony had set in between the Hills. John Hills, who worked as a road mender for Nottingham Corporation, died in Nottingham, aged 41, in early 1913. Mary Elizabeth Hills had one further child, Iram, who was born in Radford, Nottingham in early 1914. Given that John Hills had died a year earlier the child cannot have been his. The presumption must be that the child was Josiah Sanderson’s. Iram was to die before his first birthday in late 1914. The couple married at the Nottingham Register Office on 23 March 1914. Josiah’s Army papers state that his wife and children were living at 31 Leivers St, Radford Bridge Road, Old Radford. After her husband’s death, Mary Elizabeth Sanderson then married Joseph Scarborough at Nottingham in 1919. She died at Nottingham, aged 67, in 1942.

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