Sarah Winifred Fisher
Nursing Member, Surgical Nursing Duties
Sarah Winifred Fisher was the only daughter of James Fisher and Margaret Fanny Taylor, of Egton – with – Newland in Ulverston, Cumbria. They had married in 1894. Sarah was born 29th September 1895, and sadly her mother died on the day that Sarah was baptised at St. John’s Church in Barrow, just a week later on 4th October.
I have been unable to clarify what happened to her father James, but Sarah was living with her maternal grandmother, also Sarah, a retired grocer and draper at Greenodd, at the time of the 1901 census, and was going by her mother’s maiden surname of Taylor. Also living with them was a cousin, Mary, who was three at the time.
The 1901 Census entry
By 1911 Sarah was living with her uncle at The Cottage, Cullingworth. Her grandmother Sarah had died in 1907, so I am assuming that this is when she went to her uncle. Thomas Taylor was a medical practitioner. He and his wife Ada had two daughters, the aforementioned Mary, now 13 and Margaret, 8. Sarah was 15 by this time, and working as a dressmaker’s apprentice, and was back to using her birth surname of Fisher.
Perhaps it was her uncle’s work in medicine that inspired Sarah to join the war effort, she worked in surgical nursing duties at Spencer Street Auxiliary Hospital from May 1917 until June 1919.
Sarah married on 19th April 1924, to a motor salesman named George D’Arcy Bracken who was also a Keighley lad, and I believe was a merchant seaman during World War One. They were living at 14 Drake Street in Keighley at the time. Her marriage certificate suggests her father was still alive – his occupation is listed as mining engineer (when she was born, he was a butcher).
Sarah and George's marriage certificate
They had a daughter, Nancy, born on 15th May 1930 in Halifax.
Sarah died on 18th January 1945 at Arrad Foot, a hamlet close to Greenodd and Ulverston where she was born and spent her first few years of life. Her husband George was by now an aircraft factory test supervisor. He died 30 years later, in North Walisham in Norfolk.
Sources:
England and Wales, Civil Registration Birth Index, 1837-1915
England, Select Births and Christenings, 1538-1975
England and Wales, Civil Registration Marriage Index, 1837-1915
West Yorkshire, England, Church of England Marriages and Banns, 1813-1935
1901 England Census
1911 England Census
1939 England and Wales Register
West Yorkshire, England, Electoral Registers, 1840-1962
England and Wales, National Probate Calendar (Index of Wills and Administrations), 1858-1995
England and Wales, Civil Registration Death Index, 1916-2007
