What happened to Martha?
 

Martha Cooper Ward was born in Hilgay and baptised there 21 March 1841 (at least the third child of that name) to her parents Thomas Ward and Mary Ann Boyden. She was the only surviving child of the marriage.

She married, unsucessfully, to William Land in 1868. She returned to her parents' house and by 1891 is living with her widowed father in Downham Market, Norfolk.

The property was hers. She is on the electoral roll until 1893 (Thomas died in 1892) and then she disappears.

Can anyone see what happened to her? I cannot find her on subsequent censuses, nor a death in the area. She was only in her early 50s, so she might even have remarried.

Well I have had a look not seeing her anywhere but I will keep going.

Did her husband die?

I'll see if I can find him, Maggie.

Right. William fled to Grimsby and was there by 1871. He appears to have married Elizabeth Fairbank nee Hill in Holborn, then returned to Grimsby, where he died, full of years in the 1920s.

I've been looking for her, but no luck yet.

Unless she was unstable and ended her days in a mental institution, or was murdered and never found, the most convincing solution might be that she emigrated. Certainly several of her Cooper cousins did.

Funny enough I thought Canada but can't find her, don't know why I thought Canada.