Mary Mason (Mary Purcell by her first marriage; nee Holliday or Halliday), my great, great grandmother, an Irish washerwoman, was born in Dublin c. 1814-16)  She emigrated from Ireland to the East End of London.

She must have been incredibly tough, tenacious and hard-working, to have survived and raised a family in 19^th century Dickensian Whitechapel, in the East End of London (in Mary’s case, two families, as she had several children by her first husband, Purcell),