Lodger for more than 30 years in the same house?

[Stanwix England]

It does seem to hint that there might have been a relationship between them.

Funnily enough I have a relative in nearby Halifax who also had an unusual living arrangement. To cut a very long story short her husband who was violent and neglectful, eventually left her to bigamously marry another women (or so I believe). She ended up describing herself as a widow on the census after he had left, even though this wasn't true, and took in lodgers although this might have been for economic reasons. I believe her neighbours must have known the truth but perhaps chose to turn a blind eye for compassionate reasons after all that she had been through.

If you search the papers you might be able to find details which might flesh out your story further, I got a lot out of the local papers on that particular story. 

Of course we can only speculate about what was going on with your relative, there are other possible explanations. It's possible they were having a relationship. It's also possible that they were just friends, or that he was a homosexual and didn't want to marry. He might also have had some sort of health issue or mental illness which prevented him from marrying.

I'm no expert but I think the best approach might be to establish if there was some reason why Elizabeth and her lodger couldn't marry. Was one of them already married? That should give a clue.

[pendlelad]

It does seem to hint that there might have been a relationship between them.

Funnily enough I have a relative in nearby Halifax who also had an unusual living arrangement. To cut a very long story short her husband who was violent and neglectful, eventually left her to bigamously marry another women (or so I believe). She ended up describing herself as a widow on the census after he had left, even though this wasn't true, and took in lodgers although this might have been for economic reasons. I believe her neighbours must have known the truth but perhaps chose to turn a blind eye for compassionate reasons after all that she had been through.

If you search the papers you might be able to find details which might flesh out your story further, I got a lot out of the local papers on that particular story. 

Of course we can only speculate about what was going on with your relative, there are other possible explanations. It's possible they were having a relationship. It's also possible that they were just friends, or that he was a homosexual and didn't want to marry. He might also have had some sort of health issue or mental illness which prevented him from marrying.

I'm no expert but I think the best approach might be to establish if there was some reason why Elizabeth and her lodger couldn't marry. Was one of them already married? That should give a clue.

Stanwix,

A very interesting story, i have relatives on a different side of the tree who seemed to have many quarrels with each other (the man was jailed in 1861 for assaulting his wife) but they kept on having children together until 1879 (well, according to the records), they didn't seem to live together much. Ive been trawling throught the newspapers on findmypast but because of the common name (wilson) it's been quite hard and i cant seem to find anything... Elizabeth seemed to have a similar affair with a different man before she met James Bannister (but this time she was the lodger) and he was called Robert Wooler, it seems like they had a child called Smith Wilson in c.1846.

[ThrelfallYorky]

I've found one family myself where the woman was Head of the /household, no husband present, and for 3 censuses had the same lodger.
During that period she added several children. On those where the father is recorded, she gives her husband's name, but I can never find him near or far.
Some of the children on marriage gave a name of the legal father, which at least gave me a first name to have a chance of tracing him - but no. Some gave the first name of the lodger with the family surname, and one gave no father's name.
She went on to marry, I assume the lodger, as the next census shows him as Head of Household, same address, and her as wife .... mind you, I can't find any marriage that fits her either with husband 1 ( or likely death for him between relevant censuses) or for her with lodger. Such is life!

[Andrew Tarr]

In the 1881 census my g-g-g-uncle George, who never married, was lodging in Manchester with a young family in their 30s, along with a female 'servant/housekeeper', who (it turns out) was the young housewife's mother.  The marriage record shows that George was the father.  A few years later George died, and in the following census the 'housekeeper' had adopted his surname.

as far as I know there was only one child from this liaison.