Local undertaker John Anderton and his wife Ann moved from Blackrod to Adlington where they lived throughout the 1850s and 1860s. They had at least 10 children. When their eighth daughter was born in 1844, having exhausted the usual Mary, Elizabeth and Ellen, they had clearly ran out of girls names, and were forced to look through titles of the nobility for inspiration, naming the infant Countess.
Probably the first and last Countess to work in an Adlington cotton mill as a teenager. Another Adlington family who were clearly similarly inspired, had sons named Baronet and Squire.
Countess Anderton listed in the 1851 census |