The Mease sisters of Stokesley

A footnote to the story of the linen mills of Stokesley & Hutton Rudby: 1823-1908 and the Mease brothers.

Thomas and John Mease had three sisters: Isabella, Rachel and Mary.  

Rachel and Mary were the youngest children of the family, born in 1807 and 1810.  They spent their lives together in Stokesley, where Mary was the town's postmistress and Rachel her assistant.  Rachael died in 1882; Mary outlived her by ten years.

Isabella was the second child of the family, born in 1794 a couple of years after Thomas.  She was the only daughter to marry.

Leeds Mercury, 9 December 1815

On the 22d ult. at Stokesley, the Rev Robert Pilter, of Pontefract, Methodist minister, to Miss Mease, of the former place

The Rev Robert Pilter was a widower and a highly respected figure in Wesleyan Methodism.  Isabella and Robert had a large family together, and the birthplaces of the children show how frequently they moved about following Robert's calling – Pontefract, Darlington, Rochdale, Stockport, Rotherham, Doncaster, Macclesfield. 

Their eldest child Thomas was the tenant of his uncle John Mease's flax-spinning mill and had an interesting encounter with the men who had come to repossess it following his uncle's failure to pay off his debt to the Darlington Bank (see Hutton Rudby 1834-1849: the Flax-Spinning Mill by the bridge)  He moved to France, where he had a successful business career.

It was in France that his father Robert Pilter died.  According to A Dictionary of Methodism he went to Lisieux for the sake of his health but died there on 27 February 1847.

Isabella and her four unmarried daughters were left in the necessity of earning their own living. 

Four years later, the 1851 Census for the east side of Howard Street, North Shields, shows that the eldest daughter, Mary Isabella Pilter (aged 28) had set up a school in which her mother and sister Margaret (26) worked as school mistresses.  Their brothers William (aged 20, a shipping master's clerk) and Richard (aged 17) were also in the household, together with the youngest sisters Elizabeth and Isabella (15 & 13), who were still at school.

Miss Mary Pilter's notices in the Newcastle papers show that she used her father's name in her advertising.  His reputation must have been of considerable advantage to her in establishing her respectability and in attracting pupils:

Newcastle Guardian & Tyne Mercury, 15 January 1853

Misses Pilter (daughters of the late Rev. R Pilter), gratefully acknowledge the continued liberal support of their friends, and respectfully announce that the duties of their Establishment will be Resumed on Tuesday, January 18th.

Howard Street, North Shields

Three years later she moved the school to a mill-owner's mansion house in an area ideal for middle-class parents in the growing manufacturing towns of Lancashire and the West Riding.  Her advertisement is confident and reassuring:

Leeds Mercury, 18 November 1854

WILLOW LODGE, NEAR SOWERBY BRIDGE

THE MISSES PILTER (daughters of the late Rev R Pilter), beg to announce that they intend to open the above Establishment for a limited number of Pupils immediately after the Christmas vacation.

Willow Lodge (lately the seat of J F Sutcliffe, Esq.) is a most commodious mansion, in a beautiful and salubrious situation, and surrounded by extensive pleasure grounds.  Its proximity to the Leeds and Manchester Railway renders it easy of access from all parts of the kingdom.

The constant aim of the Misses Pilter will be to ensure the health, happiness, and intellectual improvement of their pupils, by granting them every indulgence consistent with a well ordered household, and by imparting sound instruction in English and Continental literature.

For terms, apply to Misses Pilter, Howard-street, North Shields

It seems the proper name of the house was Lower Willow Hall as it was named as such in a notice in the Leeds Mercury of 16 June 1821 ("the Mansion-House of Mr John Sutcliffe, called Lower Willow Hall"). 

The following July, the advertisement in the Leeds Mercury that announced the new term ("the Duties of their Establishment will be Resumed") continued the reassuring theme, so encouraging for nervous prospective parents:

Every attention is paid by the Misses Pilter to the Health and happiness as well as the moral and intellectual improvement, of their pupils ... Mrs Pilter superintends the domestic arrangements ... Terms and highly respectable references on application.

The school flourished – Mary Isabella was evidently an extremely capable woman – and by the 1861 census the four sisters and their mother had 17 boarding pupils from across Yorkshire, Lancashire, Derbyshire and Co. Durham – with the addition of one Mary Pilter, born in France and evidently the daughter of their brother Thomas.

Their advertisement in the Yorkshire Post of 27 January 1868 showed that they kept up with the latest developments in education:

Yorkshire Post, 27 January 1868

WILLOW HALL, SKIRCOAT, Near Sowerby Bridge – The Misses Pilter (Daughters of the late Rev R Pilter) have availed themselves of the Cambridge University Local Examinations as a test of the efficiency of their School, and have great pleasure in referring to the success of their pupils.  All the candidates from Willow Hall passed in every subject in which they were examined.  The NEXT TERM will commence on THURSDAY the 30th instant.

The Cambridge Local Examinations Syndicate had been established by the University in 1858 to administer local examinations so that students who weren't members of the University could sit exams at centres near to home.  The aim of the Syndicate was to raise standards in education.  Girls had only been officially allowed to enter for the exams on the same basis as boys in 1863.  With pride, the Misses Pilter announced the following year in the Leeds Mercury of 10 July 1869 that

In each of the last three years a fifth of the whole number of pupils at Willow Hall

had passed and 

Honours have been taken in English, religious knowledge, French, music, and drawing

The 1871 census for Lower Willow Hall Boarding School, Skircoat showed that Isabella and her daughters now had 32 pupils, including Mary Sykes from Stokesley.  Their 18 year old niece Margaret Pilter from France was with them, perhaps as a visitor.

The school was clearly flourishing.  Then, only a few months after the census, tragedy struck the eldest and the youngest sisters.  On 20 April 1871, Mary died aged 48 and a couple of months later

Elizabeth died aged 35.

For a short while the survivors carried on with the school.  But Mary had evidently been the driving force behind the enterprise and it must have been very hard to have the heart to keep going.  Isabella and her daughters Margaret and Isabella sold the school and retired to live on their savings with their brother John Mease Pilter, who had followed his father into the Wesleyan ministry.  By July 1873, a new headmistress was advertising the school: "Principal, Miss Wilson, (late Misses Pilter)". 

Isabella Mease died in 1888 in Wales.  She had outlived all her siblings except the youngest, Mary, who was her junior by 16 years