Nellie Lingard (née Preston) moved into 13 Coronation Street with her husband Tom and their daughter Ada in 1919. The house was let to the Lingards by Charles Hardcastle as a thank-you to Nellie for her faithful service at Hardcastle's Mill. A second daughter, Mary, was born in 1921.
Nellie had worked at the mill since she was thirteen and years as a weaver had given her premature arthritis. During their time in Coronation Street, the Lingards lived comfortably on Tom's wages from his gardening contract with the council. After celebrating the completion of the park around the new Town Hall, Tom went missing. His disappearance was never explained although on 30th January 1929 his body washed up at Blackpool's Central Pier, with no indication of what had happened to him. Nellie and the kids were taken into council care.
- Nellie first appeared in Daran Little and Bill Hill's "Weatherfield Life", published in 1992. Other information is derived from Little's follow-up book, "Around the Coronation Street Houses".