Mary Ann Ramsden was born in 1847 to Jabez Ramsden and Elizabeth Gomersall Hirst. Her mother Elizabeth (or Ellen) was born in Holmford, Yorkshire in 1832. Her 30 -year -old father was a farmer of 15 acres and an itinerant labourer.
Great Horton was a sub-district which is now part of Bradford. It was formed in the 12th century when the Lord of Bradford Manor granted land to Hugh, the son of Robert de Stapleton. It was around this time Hugh took the name Horton. Scattered medieval farmsteads gave way to a water mill and a soke mill, where it was a duty of the tenants of the surrounding areas that they must have their grain ground at the local soke mill or face a fine. By the 19th century cloth weaving, dyeing and coal pits took over until Great Horton was gradually subsumed into Greater Bradford.
Mary was baptised on the 1st of August 1847 by James Cooper of St. Jude's Bradford. St. Jude's had been built four years previously by the local wool magnate Samuel Cunliffe Lister and Bradford Infirmary Physician Dr William McTurk. It was near Lumb Lane.
In 1851 the family were living at the High Street, Great Horton. Mary already had three half -brothers. Thomas (10), Henry (8) and Joseph (6).
By 1861 the family were still in the same property and Mary had been joined by two more half -sisters Elizabeth (8) and Julia (5) and another half -brother Edward who was less than a year old. The census records Mary as a cripple.
Her father Jabez died on the 26th of May 1866 in West Riding Yorkshire.
By 1881 Mary had moved to 7 Belvedere Terrace, Brighton. Due to her condition she lived with companion Harriet Entwistle, who was 34. The household engaged a cook and a housemaid. A decade later Mary and Harriet were still at Belvedere Terrace, now renamed Norfolk Terrace, and still employed a cook and a housemaid.
At the turn of the century Mary and Harriet had moved to 14 Streatham Place, Streatham, Wandsworth, London.
In 1911, Mary and Harriet had moved again, this time to 11 Church Road, Southborough, Tunbridge Wells.
In 1927 the ailing Mary, who had been living at St Austell, Northfield Road, West Tarring was taken into the Amatola Nursing Home, where she died on 2nd May. She bequeathed her estate of £41 8 shillings and sixpence to her loyal companion Harriet.
Harriet returned to the Isle of Wight, where she previously lived with her family and died in October 1930.