Three of the children of Thomas and Margaret died young of conditions which nowadays would be treatable.

John, their second child, died aged 4 months, on 12 June 1863 of ‘Phlegonomous Erysipelas’, a painful bacterial skin infection with other flu-like attendant symptoms.

Alice, the third child died, age 4 1/2 years, on 27 October 1868 of Hydrocephalus (water on the brain.

Barbara, the fourth child died, aged 2, on 25 November 1868 of Scarlatina (Scarlet Fever).  A leading cause of death in children in the 19th and early 20th centuries.

Nowadays, two of the conditions would be treated with anti-biotics, the other (hydrocephalus) would involve the insertion of a shunt to drain the fluid.

The couple’s eldest son, Robert,  a Mason like his father, died relatively young. He did not marry. Sadly, his death on 17 April 1897, at the age of 36, was in part through his own agency.  The cause of death – alcoholism and cardiac failure.