Introduction

When John Shaw and Elizabeth Wilkinson met, perhaps across the counter of her mother and father's shop in Colne in late 1810, they found a love match that was sustain them in their lives together, public and domestic, for nearly fifty years. It was this deeply personal partnership that provided the framework and the reason for their partnership in enterprise. At times passionate and at others comfortable and companionable, or contentious and awkward; and at yet others bereft and sad, it was always a relationship they had chosen. This thing that they had made was theirs in its entirety and every dimension. They showed to it and each other great commitment and, ultimately, love – even if that love was framed within an intense religiosity such that, shortly before her marriage, Elizabeth could write of her hope that ‘May we strive to help each other on in the Heavenly road and by bearing each other's burdens fulfil one of the highest duties of our intended union’. They embodied and lived out what historians have come to term the companionate marriage.

Throughout, though, each remained absolutely distinct and unique, with a voice that rings out sharp and clear; Elizabeth fiercely independent, thoughtful, didactic, strong-willed and determined; John perhaps quieter, less confident and more anxious, but ultimately enduring, fond and sentimental.