Mary Bainbridge was born 16th January 1786 in Melmerby, in the parish of Wath Juxta Ripon, to parents Joseph Bainbridge & Ann, née Dresser. Mary was baptized in the Church of St Mary, Wath, February 1786.
Mary married John Bainbridge, May 1816, in the same church 30 years later, in the Year without a Summer. It was caused by the massive 1815 volcanic eruption of Mount Tambora in Indonesia. 1816 was an agricultural disaster. Historian John D. Post has called this “the last great subsistence crisis in the Western world.”
As a result of the series of volcanic eruptions, crops had been poor for several years; the final blow came in 1815 with the eruption of Tambora. Europe, still recuperating from the Napoleonic Wars, suffered from food shortages.
