Wilkinson, Mrs William (nee Rigby) (1876-1908)

Transcription of obituary published in the Primitive Methodist Magazine by Joseph Rigby

On Feb. 17th. Mrs. W. Wilkinson passed away at her residence, Moss Lane, Platt Bridge, at the age of thirty-one, and was interred in the Hindley Cemetery on the 20th. A special service was held in our church at Platt Bridge, conducted by the pastor, the Rev. J.H. Cretney. Mrs. Wilkinson was the daughter of Mr. Thomas Rigby, and from her infancy had been closely connected with our church and school. Until her marriage she was a regular and interested teacher. Latterly she has taken a great interest in the general work of the society, and was always to be found in the thick of the fight for the general progress of the church. She was not slow to see the value of the mothers’ meeting and flung herself into it whole-heartedly, turning it into an excellent auxiliary of church and school. 

But she was at her best in her home where it was ever her delight to entertain the local preachers and ministers of her church, the feast being enhanced by her rare facility in conversation. Indifferent workers and drones she could not tolerate, and from her as from her mother before her, the minister, particularly the junior, came in for mild censure and reproof. Yet all knew that they had no stauncher friend and though pained by the rebuke often acted on her advice. She leaves a devoted husband and two children to mourn her loss.

Family

Emma was born in the summer of 1876 at Rainford, Lancashire, to parents Thomas Rigby, a coal miner, and Betsy Owen. Joseph Rigby, a PM minister, was her brother.

She married William Wilkinson (abt1868-1924) in the spring of 1899 in the Wigan Registration District. William had a daughter from a previous marriage. he was a foreman at an iron foundry in 1901 and an insurance agent in 1911. Census returns identify one child.

• Eleanor (1902-1979) – married Ernest Gent, a railway clerk (1939), in 1924

Emma died on 17 February 1908 at Platt Bridge, nr Wigan, Lancashire

References

Primitive Methodist Magazine 1908/410

Census Returns and Births, Marriages & Deaths Registers