Oh that is such great information, Kite, thank you so much.

I really apologize for the confusion. I shouldn't burn the midnight oil and I might not make these mistakes (then again, I probably still would :o). Anyway, it was her first husband's thread I was looking at:
http://www.genealogistsforum.co.uk/f...ad.php?t=10491

I haven't taken all this in yet. Coffee first! :d

Have been chewing over the circumstances of her burial in Rawdon. Although remarried to William Webster, she was nevertheless buried with Thomas Jackson and several of their children.

I'm quite comfortable in my mind that the second marriage and the censuses you found are the right ones, Kite, because everything fits. The marriage to William Webster citing her father Henry Stead the paper maker, her age, the presence of her daughter Elizabeth, Elizabeth's occupation. And then the burial at Rawdon, 21 Feb 1855, of Hannah Webster, abode Horsforth, age 81. Perfect!

And then it hit me that I already had her on a gravestone with her first husband Thomas Jackson and all their children who died young. How could she be buried as Hannah Jackson when she's remarried and is now known as Hannah Webster? I walked around talking to myself for a couple days.

Then I came back and read the memorial inscription again and marveled at how artfully they have danced around the facts. The stone doesn't lie; it never mentions her surname at death:

Also Thomas the Father of
the above named Children, who
departed this Life the 25th of
May 1835 Aged 63 Years.
Also Hannah the Wife of the
above named who departed
this Life the 17th of Febr 1855
Aged 81 Years.

And again, the dates fit beautifully: death 17 Feb 1855, burial 21 Feb 1855, so it can't be anyone else. Maybe I'm reading too much into it. It might have been nothing but hard economics. Perhaps the Jackson grave was already paid for, and William Webster's family had no money for a proper burial.

I wonder if anyone else has run across a similar story?

Maybe William and Hannah agreed when they married that they would both be buried with their first spouses?

Ah, what a lovely thought. Thanks, Kite. :)

Just a postscript to this very satisfying thread. My second cousin once removed still lives in the same place where Hannah Stead spent her life. On the basis of the details we worked out here, he was able to go right out to the graveyard and send me a photo of her grave the very next day. His twin sons attend the primary school in the church to which this graveyard is attached.