Mrs Annie B. Dale
(1817-1886)
25 August 1862

Volume 9, page 110, sitting number 11,438.

Born Ann Backhouse Robson in Darlington on 14 March 1817, she was the only daughter of Edward Robson (1791-1819) of West Lodge, Darlington; her mother was Jane née Backhouse. According to the announcement of Ann's marriages in 1840 and 1853, her father was a 'draper' (York Herald, 26 September 1840; Durham Chronicle, 28 January 1853). 

She married firstly civil engineer Henry Whitwell of Kendall on 24 September 1840 at the Friends' Meeting House in Darlington. He died, aged 30, on 28 March 1848 in Madrid, where he accidently got caught up in an insurrection. 'It appears he was returning to dinner at his lodgings about seven o'clock in the evening [...] and on turning the corner of the street Principe, came suddenly into the presence of the cavalry who were firing down it upon the insurgents. The volley must have been within half-an-hour of the first and unexpected breaking out of the revolt. A ball struck Mr Whitwell behind, and passed completely through the abdomen. He was taken to the house of a friend adjoining, where, notwithstanding every care and attention from the doctors, who were called in, he died about eleven o'clock on the following night.' The article goes on to complain at some length that because the deceased gentleman was Protestant, he had to be buried in unconsecrated ground 'belonging to the Gas Works, outside the Gate of Toledo' (Kendal Mercury, 8 April 1848).

Ann married secondly the industrialist and collliery owner David Dale at Darlington on 27 January 1853, also at the Friends' Meeting House in Darlington. Mrs Dale was some thirteen years older than her second husband.

Each of her two marriages produced one daughter and one son. 

Mrs Annie Backhouse Dale died, aged 69, on 15 September 1886 'suddenly and unexpectedly. The deceased lady had for several years been of delicate health' (Northern Daily Mail, 16 September 1886). Her husband remarried two years later.