Widows in 1840

[vals45]

My ggg grandmother was widowed between 1839-1841, there is no record of her husband's death. I have assumed he was still around as they had a daughter who died in infancy in 1840. His occupation was a blast furnace keeper and may have been working at Dundyvan Ironworks in Coatbridge. In the 1841 census she is living in Dundyvan Row with her two children, she was 30 at the time and had 3 lodgers, all listed as furnacemen/keepers.
My question is, was this a common arrangement for widows? Would the management allow a relatively young woman to live with unrelated men? Or would her family allow it? I know that it seems to be quite common for the time for young couples to have lodgers, so the census could have been taken shortly after her husband's death. She did remarry in 1846.
My ggg grandfathers name was Thomas Cumming and apart from the OPR of his marriage, I have no other record for birth or death, although his marriage is listed under Hamilton Parish. As they only had 2 sons who survived, it is hard to work out if the sons were named after any relatives. Hence the longshot of any of the lodgers being related. I do have my suspicions that the Cumming line may have been Irish but nothing concrete to base that on.
I am very interested though if anyone could shed any light on what happened to widows if they were living in company property.
Many thanks

[nelmit]

A wee bit about Dundyvan around that time at the Scottish Mining website. http://www.scottishmining.co.uk/83.html

Regards,
Annette

[Falkyrn]

The "management's" only real concern would be that the rent was paid and on time. Families and individuals did what was necessary to survive. The view of Victorian society of being highly moralistic is partially modern myth.

I take it you have been able to confirm his death as in many cases these houses were often tied houses and the "management" were normally quite efficient in moving one family out and another in.

As an aside, Robert Duncan in his book Mineworkers reports that a large contingement of women from Dundyvan Rows attacked strikebreakers in 1842