Sarah Wilkinson

     Sarah Wilkinson, mother of Sarah Jennings, was born in Ingleton and christened on 14 July 1728 [1] . She was the fifth surviving daughter of Christopher Wilkinson and Mary Richardson [2] . Her father Christopher Wilkinson was a man of some substance as he is described as a yeoman in 1712 and a householder in 1745 [3] .

       Sarah would have joined her fifteen-year-old brother Anthony, and her sisters Alice aged thirteen, Margaret aged seven, and Ann and Catherine aged three and four [4] . With such a large family to care for, she may have found herself much in the care of her elder sisters. By the time Sarah was four years old she saw the birth of her sister Mary [5] . She may have relished the chance to baby another child, but this was not to last long. In October 1733 young Mary was buried in Ingleton graveyard aged only two [6] . Sarah was ten years old when her sister Elizabeth arrived in 1738 [7] . Two years late in 1740 Sarah’s eldest brother Anthony Wilkinson married Alice Knowles of Farleton in Thornton in Lonsdale [8] . Sarah and her sisters would have attended and probably have been bridesmaids.

       Only five years later tragedy struck the Wilkinson Household. Sarah was only seventeen years old when her father Christopher Wilkinson was buried in 1745 [9] . Her mother, Mary, may have found this particularly difficult with five daughters to support. Anthony Wilkinson may have taken his mother and five sisters in to care for them [10] .  It may have been difficult to find husbands for all five daughters and it is not certain that all five married [11] . 

       However, Sarah Wilkinson managed to capture the attentions of a young roving woolcomber named Timothy Jennings from Skipton. Timothy may have begun his career as a woolcomber in his father’s home in Skipton, but by 1748 he had met and wooed Sarah Wilkinson in Ingleton. He may have been moving wool from house to house by packhorse as part of the early domestic system.

       In January 1749 Sarah married Timothy Jennings in Ingleton parish Church [12] . Sarah and Timothy stayed in Ingleton for the first three years of their married life. Their first daughter Mary was christened in Ingleton in 1751 [13] . By 1753 Timothy and Sarah appear to have moved back to Skipton where their first son Timothy was christened [14] . But only two years later the family were back in Ingleton where their second daughter Rebecca was christened in 1755 [15] . Each move between Skipton and Ingleton would have been quite tortuous for a young family and would have taken at least a days travelling.  The family then moved from Ingleton to Settle by 1759 where their next two daughters, Sarah and Elizabeth, were christened [16] . Finally, the family again moved back to Skipton where their youngest son John Jennings was christened in 1763 [17] . John may have been born blind, or he may have been injured before the age of twenty-three when he was recorded as a blind fiddler.

            Timothy must have made a good living in Skipton as Srah and the children stayed there for the rest of her life. The many moves and bearing six children had unfortunately left Sarah weakened and she passed away in October 1765 in Skipton [18] .  She was only thirty-seven years old and left three young children motherless.