« Reply #10 on: Thursday 30 March 17 17:24 BST (UK) »
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.
LANCASHIRE-Nutter, Driver, Foley, Taylor, Blanthorn, Parker, Pickles, Grime, Mudd, Broadley, Spencer, Whalley, Harrison, Ellis, Timmins, Duerden, Cornthwaite, Schofield, Wardley, Lord, Scholes
IRELAND-Foley, Timmins, Foran, Farrall, Traynor, Crawley, Ganley, McDermott, Manning
HAMPSHIRE-Wheeler, Gilmore
STAFFS/SHROP-Darn, Spittle
DERB'HIRE-Mason, Trimmer
YORKSHIRE-Perkin (Parkin), Robinson
CORNWALL-Harris, Jane, Bennett
CHESHIRE-Littlemore, Timmins, Blanthorn, Smith
HUNTI'SHRE-Stretton, Bryant