Sarah Rich

  Noted events in her life were:

• source. Mary-Ann Cook who writes:
Sarah was born in Romford in the third quarter of 1842. At the time her parents, John and Eliza Rich, were living at the Barrack Ground.
The Barrack Ground was an estate of small workers` cottages built on the site of the barracks constructed in 1795 as the Revolutionary War with France raged, to house six troops of cavalry. From then on the names of soldiers from different regiments appear in the parish registers, mainly through death or marriage. There were frequent disputes between soldiers and townsfolk, and though Romfordians appreciated the need for defence against the French, this was a rather unruly period of Romford`s history.
The barracks were demolished in about 1825, after the Napoleonic threat had passed. The site, comprising about 12 acres, and extending south from London Road to where the railway would later be built, was sold in about 1840. John and Eliza must have been one of the first families to occupy houses there. It became the first large scale development in the area, with over 200 artisans cottages and at least 2 factories built there during the next 15 years. The area, which was known in the 1840s as New Romford, included Waterloo Road, St Andrew`s Road, and Queen Street. Since the Second World War it has been redeveloped with council flats. (From Romford Barracks (1795-c.1825) - a brief history)
Sarah was the fourth child in a family of nine; she became a dressmaker and was living with the family between the cemetery and Pettits Lane in 1861. By 1871, at the age of 28, she was still unmarried and was then a housemaid to Charlotte Maike at 17 Upper Wimpole Street in Marylebone. She became the second wife of James Hale in the second quarter of 1874, and I wonder whether she had always had her sights on him, but lost out to Sarah Hanson first time around. Barrack Ground was after all just down the road from Waterloo Road/High Street where the Hale family had always lived.
Sarah had seven children, Alice, Elisa, Ernest, Ada, Jessie, Frank and Agnes. She died in Romford at the age of 65 in the first three months of 1908.

Sarah married James Hale, son of James Hale and Lucy, in 1874 in Romford, Essex England. (James Hale was born in 1840 in Romford, Essex England and died in 1902 in Romford, Essex England.)