Sarah Herbert

(1809 - 1901)

 

Sarah Brinkhurst, the only child of Benjamin Brinkhurst and his wife Mary, married Thomas Herbert in 1836.

 

We have a note in George Herbert’s handwriting saying how he ‘often heard from my mother how she used to leave after putting me to bed and go round to look up the men who were making the various parts - beams, pans, boxes, and the strings that she used to make herself.’  This was ‘at the time of the Great Gold Hurry about 1842 to 1844.’ ‘….they were sold at £1-1-0 per pair and upwards and people were mad to buy them’.  Although the 1848 California Gold Rush is the most well known, there were earlier Gold Rushes in California and Alabama in 1842.  In addition there was general panic in England at the time about light coinage in circulation in the country, as shown in this letter to The Times of 15th June 1842.