Caroline Elizabeth ARCHIBALD was born in Askrigg in the heart of Wensleydale in Yorkshire in about 1833/4. Askrigg is famous for being the setting for the TV series All Creatures Great and Small. It was also known for hand-knitting and clock-making. In 1834 it was said, "The inhabitants are chiefly employed in husbandry, and others in wool-combing, the manufacturing of knit hosiery and dressing of flax. In the neighbourhood are lead mines, but they are not very productive."
Elizabeth was christened Caroline Elizabeth in November 1834, but seems to have been called Elizabeth since before 1841.
Her family moved to Blackburn during the 1840's to live with her uncle Henry ARCHIBALD. In 1851, she was working as a cotton carder and living with her parents on Friday Street.
She married James FORREST who also worked in the cotton industry on 13 April 1854 and they had seven children between 1854 and 1873. Her second child Robert Archibald FORREST was named after her father Robert ARCHIBALD.
The marriage appears to have been unhappy with James not living with Elizabeth and the children in 1861 and 1881, and staying as a lodger in beerhouses. There appears to have been a reconciliation around 1871 when William and Harriet were conceived, but by 1881 they are again separated with him listed as a widower living at 42/44 Highfield Road and she as a widow living 600yds away at 22 Crossfield Street.
Elizabeth ARCHIBALD is identified as the mother of William FORREST on his birth certificate of 1871. At that time they were living at 16 Cross Field Street, Blackburn.
From 1881 she lived at 22 Crossfield Street with her family, running the household.
On the 1891 Census her place of birth is given as Leeds, and in 1901 it is given as Ingleton,Yorkshire. Ingleton is halfway between Askrigg and Blackburn.
Elizabeth died in 1903 in Blackburn.
