Florence Beaumont

Florence Beaumont was the mother of Annie Walker and the principle source of her daughter’s pretensions and snobbishness that would characterise her throughout her life.

Annie frequently spoke of her family’s standing in Clitheroe where they were supposedly one of the oldest and most respected families. The tragedy that lay behind some of her exaggerations was that in the time of Annie’s grandfather the family did have money and were a force to be reckoned with in the district. However he invested the money unwisely, and on his death in 1927, his eldest son (and Annie’s father), Edward discovered the parlous state of the family fortune.

Edward’s siblings quickly left the area, leaving him to clear up the mess. In an manner similar to that which befell Charles Dickens in his youth, Annie was uprooted from her secure and somewhat affluent lifestyle and sent out to work in a weaving shed (in a doorstep argument with Elsie Tanner in 1967, Annie was called a "clapped-out millhand"). She found herself working among women whom her mother had once told her not to associate with. Annie “survived” the work for three years before Florence’s Aunt, Isabella Scatterwood died on 7th April 1930 and left her niece her ice cream factory in the Lancashire town of Weatherfield. The small family moved there and Annie and her parents rejoiced in their newly-recovered status.
 * Florence died some years before the programme began broadcasting in 1960 and was therefore not seen on screen. The information for this biography is taken from Daran Little and Bill Hill's 1992 book Weatherfield Life.