This should cause a stir!...... I take no credit for much of this detail. Most was supplied to me by a cousin, to whom I am extremely grateful.... The 'hairdresser' detail at the end came from pictures in books I obtained from Kendal and elsewhere.
Richard Nelson (b.1819) and Margaret Lund (b.1823) were married at Kendal Parish Church on 23 Jan 1847. Their dates of birth aren't shown, just that they are of age. Witnesses were William Whiteley and Mary Ann Atkinson.
1851 - Margaret (Lund) Nelson and son Thomas, live with her father, Thomas Lund, and her brother and 86 year old grandmother Jane Parkin. William and Jane Whiteley live next door to the Nelson/Lund's. (Address?)
1861 - Richard Nelson and his wife Margaret (Lund) Nelson live at 11, Captain French Lane. Their children are Thomas, Edward, Martha J., Mary A., and young Elizabeth, 8 months old. Also there is Mary J. Whiteley, age 10, described as a 'servant'. The Whiteley family have another daughter, Margaret, age 8.
1881 - William Whiteley, wife Jane and their daughter Mary Jane Whiteley, 30, are at 49 Captain French next door to the Nelson's at 51. Listed are the so called 'children' of William and Jane, ...Thomas L. Harrison 8, William J. Harrison 6, Richard E. Harrison 4, William T. Mitchell 9, and Jane Hannah Nelson, 10 months! The three Harrison boys were actually the children of Mary Jane Whiteley by a Thomas Harrison, but it seems Mary J. was not married to him? Mary's sister Margaret was married to William Mitchell.
1880 - A marriage record exists for a Francis Nelson and Mary Jane Whiteley in the March quarter of 1880. However, in the 1881 census she used the surname Whiteley and is described as a widow.
1881 - Workhouse records for Kendal have two Thomas Harrison's on file. Both are 55, one an 'imbecile', the other a 'wool comber'. Were they one and the same?
1891 - Mary Jane Whiteley is shown as wife to Francis Nelson. The Harrison boys are listed as (Nelson) stepchildren, and Frank and Mary J. are shown as having two children of their own, Margaret A. 5, and James, 1. Mary J.'s mother, Jane Whiteley, 71, lives with them.
1902 - (Edward VII's Coronation,) Whiteley Hair-Dresser, at 59(?), Highgate, Kendal and pre-WW2, W. Whiteley & Son, Ladies & Gents Hairdresser, 173 Highgate, Kendal.
How's that?