In the 1871 Census, she is listed as Mary Jane Palmer, aged 1, living in Union Street, Wigton with PATTINSON WILSON, a hand-loom weaver, his wife MARGARET and their daughter MARY JANE WILSON, aged 7.
Her relationship to head of household is given as NURSE CHILD. Barry Lawman and the County Archivist at Carlisle beleive this was a child 'loaned-out' to either a recently bereaved mother to help use up her breast milk or to a new mother who had milk to spare where the natural mother could not feed her child.