Introduction

Catherine Young was the eighth child and fourth daughter of Abel Bellairs, banker, of Stamford and Uffington, Lincs., and his wife, Susannah, daughter of Miles Lowley. She was born on 16 September, 1797. Her family lived at Stamford until 1814, when the Stamford, Derby and Leicester banks, in which they were concerned, failed, and their home was split up. The parents took Catherine and their other unmarried daughters and spent the next few years in London, Devonshire and elsewhere; the oldest sons, James and George, began the task of honouring the credit of the Bellairs bank; and the third son, Henry, after a few years in the Navy, during which he was wounded at Trafalgar, and in the Army, married and went up to St. Mary Hall, Oxford, to read for Holy Orders. Catherine and her eldest sister, Fanny, often visited his home, and both married his college friends : Fanny married James Higgon of Haverfordwest, and in 1819 Catherine married the Rev. John Lindsey Dent Young, of Brasenose College.

For three years Catherine and John Young lived at Ealing, where John was curate of St. Mary’s church, and two sons, John Henry and William Carr were born. In 1822 they moved to Cockerham, Lancs, for John to take over the living; but he soon fell a victim to consumption, and, at 25, Catherine was left a widow, with two sons. Her mother-in-law undertook John’s education at Eton and Cambridge, but Willy must be provided for by his mother.

The next nine years cannot have been easy. Catherine’s mother died before the first was out, and she and her sons spent most of their time thereafter in or near Haverfordwest, with her father or sister Fanny, in lodgings or in a house in the town which Catherine shared with her youngest sister until she married.

In 1831, when John was 12 and Willy rising 10, it was decided that Catherine should move to Bedford, where she could make a home for herself and her father, and secure a good education for the younger boy.