Jemima Binns’ grave. Source: SGCT.
Jemima Binns was widowed in 1841 and was the mother of eight children ranging in age from one year to 16 years. Her husband had been a coach hire proprietor and unusually wrote a will in which he hoped his widow would carry on the business.
Jemima certainly fulfilled his wishes and ran the business for 24 years entirely without her husband until 1865 three years before her own death, and despite the deaths of her two eldest children. On her death everything was sold by public auction, including 24 horses, a range of carriages, mourning coaches and two omnibuses.
Jemima died in the spring of 1868 and was buried in plot H 169, Nonconformist area. Inscribed on her monument are the words: ‘She looketh well to the ways of her household and eateth not the bread of idleness’.
You can read more about the lives of women buried in the Cemetery in the Sheffield General Cemetery Trust’s publication A Woman’s Place.