Nat Gould

Alice Horobin 1796-1887

Alice Horobin was born in Sheen in 1796. She married Richard Gould 1780-1843.

Through his mother her husband inherited Biggin Hall in 1842 from Margaret Goodwin, the last of the resident Goodwin family. Richard and Alice Gould moved there with their children from Crowdecote. They restored the house, which dates from the seventeenth century (1).

However on 12 April in the following year Richard Gould died aged 62 years, and was buried at Hartington on 19 April 1843.

During her long widowhood Alice Gould continued to live at Biggin Hall, farming there with her three bachelor sons John, Richard and Edmund Gould. The farm grew in size from 65 acres in 1851 to 84 acres ten years later and to 250 acres by 1881.

After her death in 1887 her unmarried sons continued farming at Biggin Hall until the death of the last of them in 1915.

The children of Richard and Alice Gould were as follows:

Mary Gould. She was born in 1816 at Longnor in Staffordshire. She was married to Samuel Belfield, born in Hartington in 1805, the son of Joseph and Ann Belfield of Hartington. Samuel Belfield was farming at Crowdecote in Hartington parish until between 1844 and 1847 when the family moved to Dinting Vale near Glossop in Derbyshire, where Samuel Belfield was employed as a railway goods porter. When the 1851 Census was taken, their daughter Mary Ann Belfield aged eight years was staying with her grandmother Alice Gould nee Horobin at Biggin Hall in Derbyshire. Mary Belfield died in 1877 at Glossop.

John Gould. He was born in 1818 at Sheen. He died unmarried on 7 January 1904 aged 85 years, and was buried at Hartington on 12 January 1904.

William Gould 1822-1859. He was born at Longnor in 1822. On 7 February 1844 he married Rachel Bagshaw at Hartington. He was then living at Crowdecote and presumably farming the former family farm there. He died in 1859 and was buried at Earl Sterndale in Derbyshire on 17 August 1859.

Ann Gould. She was born in 1825. On 2 January 1845 aged 20 years she was married to Ralph Bagshaw at Hartington (2). She died on 12 May 1887 at High Needham in Hartington parish.

Thomasin Gould 1827-1842. She was born in 1827. She died on 11 March 1842 aged only 15 years, and was buried at Hartington on 16 March 1842.

Richard Gould. He was born in 1828 at Sheen. He died unmarried on 17 January 1915 at Biggin Hall.

Francis Gould 1830-1848. He was born on 26 April 1830. He died on 23 November 1848 aged 18 years, and was buried at Hartington on 27 November 1848.

Mark Gould. He was born in 1833 at Crowdecote. He was baptised at Hartington on 28 April 1833.

Edmund Gould. He was born in 1835 at Crowdecote. In 1898 he married Marian Sellors at Bakewell in Derbyshire. He died on 24 June 1909 at Bakewell aged 74 years.

Martha Sarah Goodwin Gould. She was born in 1837 at Crowdecote. She died on 6 April 1838 aged only ten months, and was buried at Hartington on 13 April 1838.

Alice Gould nee Horobin died on 6 May 1887 aged 91 years, and was buried at Hartington on 10 May 1887 with her husband and their three children who died young. There is a fine and unusual double gravestone to their memory.

(1) Peter Featherstone, Biggin and Hartington Nether Quarter pages 33 and 185 (1998).
(2) "On the 2nd. inst., at the same church [Hartington], Mr. Bagshaw, of High Needham, farmer, to Miss Ann Gould, daughter of the late Mr. Richard Gould, of Biggin Hall, both in this county." Derby Mercury 8 January 1845.