Samuel Middlebrook 1784-1846

 

 

 

Samuel Middlebrook was born in Morley Yorkshire on 16 October 1784-the same year the Methodist Church was chartered in England, and the year that the last person in England was burned at the stake, and the Industrial Revolution was in its infancy. Times were changing and Samuel was to be part of that change.
He  married Hannah Nicholson on 19th December 1893 and had 5 children.
At the time of the birth of his first daughter Mary Ann in 1809 Samuel is listed as a clothier - a profession that runs deep in the Middlebrook history.
By the birth of his second child Elizabeth, he was a butcher, like his father Thomas before him, and a trade that was to become extremely important to the Middlebrook family for the next hundred years or more.
At the baptism at Batley All Saints, of each of his other children, Fanny, John and Thomas he is listed as a Butcher, however by 1828 he is listed in the Pigots Commercial Directory as a Publican- residing at the Black Bull Inn Liversedge Yorkshire.
Clearly a man of conviction, Samuel  was a “Chartist” and was a founding member of the Liversedge “Radical Association”
As noted in the Leeds Times August 4 1838 “ At a meeting held at the house of Samuel Middlebrook, Black Bull Inn Liversedge, a Radical Association was formed for the purpose of securing the political rights of Englishmen, and to promote the adoption by Parliament of the 5 great Radical principals, namely, Universal Suffrage, Vote by ballot, Annual Parliaments, no property qualifications for Members of Parliament, and equal representation.
The 1841 census has Samuel living at the Black Bull Inn with his son John and daughter Fanny.
He died in 1846 and it appears that at some point after that  John took over running the Black Bull until he and his family of 7 children emigrated to New Zealand to begin a new life.