Mary Mansfield Grave

Mary Mansfield: The devoted maid of the Breffit family

An inscription on a headstone in Ilkley Cemetery reveals the story of a remarkable life of service, and the family whose fortunes spanned industrial Yorkshire and Victorian London.

During its ongoing maintenance of Ilkley Cemetery, the Friends of Ilkley Cemetery uncovered a headstone bearing a simple but poignant inscription. It records that Mary Mansfield served the Breffit family as a maid for thirty-eight years.

Who was Mary Mansfield, and who were the Breffits? Behind these few words lies a story of industrial enterprise, Victorian society and a long relationship between a wealthy family and the woman who served them for much of her life.

Edgar Breffit: From glassworks to the City of London

Edgar Breffit was born in Derbyshire in 1810 and moved as an infant to Barnes, London, where his father established a horticultural business. By the time he married Susannah Webster in 1838, Edgar was working as a bottle merchant in Covent Garden.

In 1844, he acquired the glassworks at Ryebread Hill, near Castleford, and renamed it Breffit's Glass Works. The business specialised in manufacturing glass bottles and grew rapidly. In the 1851 census, Edgar was described as a glass bottle manufacturer employing 140 men. As the business expanded, its workforce eventually exceeded 1,000 employees. Its transport network included ships and canal boats carrying raw materials and bottles around the country.

The repeal of excise duty on glass helped stimulate the industry, contributing to the growth of Breffit's business and his personal fortune. His success brought influence beyond manufacturing. He became the first chairman of the Castleford Board of Health and chaired the Scarborough and Whitby Railway Company. A Liberal in politics, he also rose to prominence in the City of London, serving as an alderman and later as a Sheriff of London.

The Breffits maintained homes in both the north and south of England, including River House at Ryebread, near Castleford, and The Glebe at Lee, in south-east London. Edgar died at Lee in 1882, leaving an estate valued at £124,000—a considerable fortune for the time.

The Breffit family comes to Ilkley

Edgar and Susannah had eight children. Following Edgar's death, Susannah continued to live at Ryebread, where the 1891 census records her with three of their children.

One of them was Rosa Beatrice Breffit, born in Lee in 1857 or 1858. By 1911, Rosa had settled at Eastholme, Margerison Road, Ilkley. She was unmarried and living with Mary Mansfield, the woman whose headstone would eventually bring their story to light.

Mary Mansfield: A life in service

Mary's life is much harder to reconstruct than that of her employers. Census records provide glimpses of her working life, but little evidence of her personal circumstances.

Born at Cheadle, Staffordshire, in 1828, she may have been the daughter of John and Hannah Keates. In 1851, she was unmarried and looking after her two younger sisters in Checkley, Cheadle, where the family had also been living ten years earlier.

By 1871, however, she was living in Leicester, lodging with Thomas Keates, who may have been a cousin. She was working as a nurse under the name Mary Mansfield, suggesting that she had married sometime between the two census returns, although we have so far been unable to trace her husband or establish the details of her marriage.

Ten years later, the 1881 census noted that she was a widow, still living in Leicester and employed as a servant by Lady Mary Hazelgrave.

By 1891, Mary was working for the Breffit family, again recorded as a widow. It appears likely that she was employed as a maid to the family in Castleford at the time of Edgar’s death in 1882. In 1901, she was living in the household of Edgar and Susannah's son Horace, a clergyman in Durham. Rosa was also recorded there at that time. By 1911, she was living with Rosa in Ilkley. Although Mary was then in her early eighties, the census described her as a housekeeper rather than retired.

For a woman who spent so many years in domestic service, the surviving records tell us remarkably little about her life beyond her employment. We still do not know whom she married, whether she had children, or how she came to enter the service of the Breffit family. Each census adds another fragment to her story, but important questions remain unanswered.

A final tribute

Having been living in Eastholme, Margerison Road in 1911, Rosa and Mary had moved to Eaton Road, Ilkley by 1920. On 17 September that year, Mary died. The West Kent Argus reported her death in her 93rd year, describing her as having been, for nearly forty years, the devoted maid of the late Edgar and Susannah Breffit of Oaklawn, Lee, and of Miss Breffit of Eaton Road, Ilkley.

There was clearly a bond between Mary and Rosa, who cared for Mary in her later years, and the provision of a grave and substantial headstone suggests a desire to honour a woman who had been part of the family's life for decades. We cannot know the precise nature of their relationship, but the inscription conveys respect and affection beyond a simple record of employment.

Rosa herself later moved to Roundhay, Leeds, where she was living in 1939. In 1944, the Yorkshire Post reported the death of her sister Susan Kate, referring to a sister, Miss Breffit, living at 16 Roman Grove, Roundhay. Rosa died there in 1946, aged 89.

Remembering Mary

The Breffit family left its mark on industrial Yorkshire and Victorian public life. Edgar's business helped shape the glass industry around Castleford, while his wealth brought him into the civic life of London. Mary Mansfield's life was quieter and far less documented.

Yet it is Mary's headstone that brings us back to Ilkley and invites us to look beyond the names and dates. It reminds us that the histories of great industrial families were also built around the lives of those who served them, often faithfully and for many years, with little recognition in the historical record.

Thanks to the work of the Friends of Ilkley Cemetery, Mary's name—and the story of her long association with the Breffit family—can be remembered once again.