Henry Cairens
Henry Cairens (later known as Henry Cains) was baptised in Market Weighton, East Yorkshire, England, on 11th Jan 1808. His parents were Alexander Cairens , a labourer, and Mary Parkin.
He remembered seeing the Yorkshire Giant, William Bradley, at his outsized home in Market Weighton.
He seems to have found a job at Clock Mill in Pocklington working for John Scaife, before 1839. John died in May 1839 only 46 years old. Henry married his widow, Hannah Scaife, in June 1840. Hannah was 8 or 9 years older and had inherited Clock Mill in Pocklington, so this was certainly a step up the social ladder for the son of a labourer. Her two children George and Ann lived with them, shown on the 1841 census.
By the 1851 census they had bought and moved into Devonshire Mills at Canal Head in Pocklington. (Map) They employed a servant girl Elizabeth Gray, aged 17.
Hannah died on 30.7.1861. Just over a year later Henry married again, at the age of 54, to his former servant girl. She was 17 years his junior. Henry married Elizabeth Gray on 16.11.1862.
They had five children :-
Henry Parkin Cains born 20.4.1863 (his father claimed he was born very premature !), Sarah Mary Cains born 2.8.1865, Ann Marina Cains born 17.8.1866, Harriet Maud Mary Cains born 29.1.1868, and Francis George Cains 19.2.1871. So Henry had his last child when he was 63 ! More details here
Elizabeth died on 10.1.1880, and Henry married for a third time, in 3rd quarter of 1882 to Mary Goodyear, when he was at least 71 ! She was 20 years younger than him.
Henry finally died on 4.10.1891, aged 83. He put down his long life to eating so much healthy wholemeal bread from his corn mills.
This is the grave of Henry with his first wife Hannah, in the oldest part of the Pocklington church graveyard.
I am the great-grandson of Henry Parkin Cains ( Parkin was his grandmother's maiden name). Henry Parkin Cains carried on the milling profession, and also lived to a great age, 96. My Dad is now retired but is very interested in milling, and shows tourists round a rebuilt working water mill. He was proud to show my son the flour sacks from his great-great grandad's mill displayed on the walls.