LIFE GOES ON: AN INTRODUCTION

MY GRANDPARENTS - I - MY GREAT-GRANDPARENTS - I - MY GREAT-GREAT-GRANDPARENTS - I - MY GREAT-GREAT-GREAT-GRANDPARENTS

THE SIXTEEN FAMILIES

KNOTT - I - BOWLES - I - WATERS - I - HARRALL - I - PAGE - I - WISEMAN - I - CROSS - I - CARTER

CORNWELL - I - HUCKLE - I - MORTLOCK - I - MANSFIELD - I - REYNOLDS - I - CARTER - I - ANABLE - I - STEARN

CHRONOLOGY - I - DRAMATIS PERSONAE - I - WHERE PEOPLE CAME FROM - I - CALENDAR

MAP OF ELY - I - MAP OF MEDWAY
MAP OF CAMBRIDGE AND DISTRICT

THE WORKHOUSE

WORLD WAR I - I - WORLD WAR II

simonknott.co.uk I home I e-mail

LIFE GOES ON








Holywell-cum-Needingworth holy well


The Mansfield family: Huntingdonshire's underclass

My Mother's Father's Mother's Mother's family

The narrative can be read in conjunction with
the Cornwell family tree. You can see places significant to the Mansfield family on the site map of Cambridge and district.
This family story includes material from, and links with, the stories of the
Cornwell, Huckle and Mortlock families. My direct ancestors are highlighted in bold the first time they appear in the narrative.

In 1815, the year that Wellington defeated Bonaparte at the Battle of Waterloo and thus the year that the 19th Century began in earnest, my great-great-great-grandfather Abraham Mansfield was born in Needingworth on the border between Huntingdonshire and Cambridgeshire. Abraham's father Joseph was an agricultural labourer - indeed, he was still being shown as such on the 1861 census, when he was well into his eighties - but in general the Mansfield family had a reputation for living outside the law, rarely marrying and producing illegitimate children at a prodigious rate. However, Abraham married my great-great-great-grandmother Kezia Clarke Mansfield in 1833 when he was in his late teens.

Several of my sixteen ancestral families through my great-great-grandparents had a close relationship with the workhouse, but the Mansfields were more familiar with it than most. In 1851, for example, a large minority of the inhabitants of the St Ives workhouse (actually in the village of Hemingford Grey, just outside of St Ives) had the Mansfield surname, including Joseph and his wife Mary and several of their childrens' families, including that of Abraham and his wife Kezia. Abraham himself, however, was no longer around. He had been caught breaking into a dwelling house, and on 28th June 1841 he was sentenced at Huntingdon Assizes to seven years transportation. After a short spell in Worcester prison, he was received onto the prison hulk ship Warrior in the Thames Estuary on the 25th August 1841. The hulks will be familiar to readers of Charles Dickens' Great Expectations, and this is extraordinary to me, because at that time another of my great-great-great-grandfathers, John Harrall, was living as a boy in the village of Higham in Kent, beside which the hulks were moored and which was the setting for Pip's home and the churchyard in Great Expectations. Dickens novel is set at exactly this time. The Mansfields were on my mother's side of the family and the Harralls on my father's side. I feel as if I were the first direct descendant of both Abel Magwitch and Philip Pirrip.

It was almost a year before Abraham Mansfield was transferred to the prison ship which would take him to Australia. This was the Triton, and it left the Thames Estuary on 4th August 1842. It was bound for Van Diemens Land, which is today called Tasmania. There is no evidence that Abraham Mansfield ever returned to England. He seems to have been well-behaved as a transportee, receiving his Ticket of Leave in 1846 and his Certificate of Freedom in 1848. At the time of the 1851 census, his wife Kezia in the St Ives workhouse described herself as married, but by 1861 she was calling herself a widow. However, there is a record of an Abraham Mansfield, general dealer of Lymington, Tasmania, applying for discharge from bankruptcy in 1863.

Kezia had at least eight children, but there were probably more. In the main, they were not baptised, and so we only know them through the census data, marriages and burials until civil registration started in 1837. Several of them were convicted of criminal offences and sent to prison. Only the eldest three, including my great-great-grandmother Eliza Mansfield, can possibly be Abraham's children.

    Joseph Mansfield
Born Needingworth in 1835 and baptised in Holywells church on 22nd February. His father Abraham was recorded as a labourer. In 1841 Joseph was the eldest of three children at home in Church Lane, Needingworth, but by 1851 he was in the St Ives workhouse. On 24 February 1855, the Cambridge Independent Press reported that Joseph Mansfield, a member of a benefit club in Needingworth, summoned Fisher Webster, treasurer to the club, for refusing to pay him 9s a week sick money. The case was dismissed. On 5th January 1857 he was sentenced at Cambridge Assizes to six months with hard labour for larceny of goods. On 16th May 1857, the Cambridge Independent Press reported an inquest into the death of 24 year old Joseph Mansfield of Needingworth, who had died in Cambridge Gaol. It noted that, due to ill health, the 'hard labour' portion of his sentence had not been applied, but he had been employed as a cook. However, his health had declined and he had been removed to the gaol infirmary, where he had died. The inquest noted that Joseph was a veteran of the Crimean War, having served two seasons in the trenches. The gaol surgeon Mr Hammond deposed that Joseph's death was due to consumption (ie, tuberculosis) and the inquest returned a verdict of Natural Death. He was buried in Holywel churchyard on 11th May 1857, when it was recorded in the parish register that Joseph was lately a soldier.

Abram Mansfield
Born Needingworth in 1836 and baptised at Holywells church on 30th July 1837. In 1841 he was the second of three children at home in Church Lane, Needingworth, but the following year he died at the age of six and was buried in Needingworth churchyard on 16th October.

Eliza Mansfield
Born Needingworth in 1839 and baptised at Holywells church on 24th November. My great-great-grandmother - see below.

Samuel Mansfield
Born in the St Ives Workhouse, 1842 and baptised in Holywells church on 28th June 1844. Only his mother's name was recorded as a parent in the registers. Samuel was probably not Abraham Mansfield's child. In 1851 he was still in the workhouse at the age of nine. On 4th October 1857, when Samuel was 15, The Cambridge Independent Press reported that Samuel Mansfield, a labourer of Needingworth, along with Mark Easton of the same village, was charged with breaking open an outhouse attached to a homestead, and stealing an 18 gallon barrel of beer and a wooden bottle. They were committed under the Juvenile Offenders Act for six weeks hard labour, and both to be privately whipped. On 17th October 1859 Samuel was sentenced at Huntingdon Assizes to twelve months in prison for house-breaking, having burgled the house of the same Mark Easton, with whom he had been a lodger.
He had feloniously entered a dwelling house at Holywell, and stolen 14 shillings. Soon after his release from prison he was a witness to the marriage of his sister Eliza to Thomas Moody Mortlock at Holywells church on 16th January 1861. At the time of the census a couple of months later Samuel was living at the Barracks in Needingworth with his mother and sister Harriet, when all three were recorded as agricultural labourers. Thereafter, he disappears from view, and may have gone abroad, perhaps with the military.

Emma Mansfield
Born in the St Ives Workhouse, 1845. Emma and the following children cannot possibly be the children of Abraham Mansfield. In 1851 she was still in the workhouse at the age of six. By 1861 she was a servant in London, in the household of William Lister, a plumber and builder of King Street, Farringdon. In 1871 she was back in St Ives, working as a cook in the household of the miller Henry Goodman in the Bullock Market. In 1876 she married James Walter Stephens, and they had five children. The family stayed in St Ives, and Emma died in January 1890 at the age of 45.

Harriet Mansfield
Born in the St Ives Workhouse, 1848. In 1851 she was still in the workhouse at the age of three. She was baptised at Holywell-cum-Needingworth church on 26th July 1857 along with her brother Henry when she was nine years old.The Rector noted in the parish register that Harriet was illegitimate. At home with her mother in Needingworth in 1861, she gave birth to a baby girl baptised Ada Webster Mansfield in 1869. She was still in the village in 1871 as a lodger in the house of her cousin Amos Stopher. In July 1871 she married James Mansfield, who may have been a cousin. Their first child Maria was baptised at Holywells church on 3rd December of that year, when James was recorded as a labourer. Maria died at the age of nine months and was buried in Holywell churchyard on 1st September 1872. A son, named James after his father, followed in 1873,

Edward Mansfield
Born in the St Ives Workhouse, 1851. He was recorded in the workhouse at the age of one month, and his death was recorded, probably in the workhouse, one month later. He does not appear to have been buried in Holywell churchyard.

Henry William Mansfield
Born in Needingworth, 1857. He was baptised at Holywell-cum-Needingworth church on 26th July 1857 along with his sister Harriet, then aged nine. The parish register records that both were illegitimate. He died in October, and was buried in Holywell churchyard on 30th October.

Eliza was living in the St Ives workhouse in 1851, along with her mother, grandparents, brothers, sisters and cousins. But before the next census her life would be turned around. On 16th January 1861, Eliza married my great-great-grandfather Thomas Moody Mortlock at Needingworth parish church. Thomas was just 19 years old, two years younger than his bride. He came from a fairly prosperous household, his father a mealsman, a dealer in cereals and grain. Eliza was six months pregnant at the time of the marriage. The witnesses were Thomas's elder sister Hephzibah and Eliza's brother Samuel, recently released from prison. It cannot have been seen as a good match by Thomas's parents. Nevertheless, the census of April that year finds the couple living with Thomas's parents, and their first child Samuel was already a month old, born three months after their marriage.

It is worth reflecting that girls from the Mansfield family very often got pregnant in their late teens and early twenties, and very rarely got married. They would continue to have further children without marriage; often, presumably, by different fathers. Whole generations of the Mansfield family went by without anyone marrying. The impetus for the marriage between Thomas Moody Mortlock and Eliza Mansfield must, therefore, have come from the Mortlock family. For Eliza, it was an event which would change her life, taking her away from the feral underclass into the stability of an honest hard-working family. That the Mortlocks would ensure the future comfort of Eliza's mother Kezia, even as far as making sure she had a headstone when she died, is even greater to their credit.

By the time Thomas and Eliza's daughter, my great-grandmother Eliza Mortlock, was born in 1865, The family were living respectably in High Street, Needingworth, and they would live there for the rest of their lives. Thomas was a bricklayer, probably in his Uncle John's business. These are the fourteen children of Thomas and Eliza Mortlock. In general, the girls went into service, the boys into their father's trade. They travelled further than any of my other great-grandparents' families, the censuses finding them living in Coventry, Essex, Bradford, Leeds and Wiltshire; several of them ended up in the east end of London. And yet, most of them came home again. Two of the children died in infancy, another while still relatively young, but most of Thomas and Eliza's children lived to a good age.

    Samuel Mortlock
Born Swavesey 1861. Samuel's birth, a few days after the 1861 census, was three months after his parents' marriage. He was born in the house of his grandparents, John and Mary Mortlock. The family moved to Needingworth a few months later. Samuel was baptised at Holywell church on 1st June 1873, when he was 12 years old. Samuel became a bricklayer like his father. He married Mary Ellen Toyn at Spilsby in Lincolnshire in July 1884; she had probably been in domestic service in the St Ives area.

Samuel and Mary moved into 15 Gloucester Street Cambridge, a road off of Castle Hill. They had five children: Matilda, Lawrence, Harold, Nellie and Geoffrey. In 1911, the sixteen year old Geoffrey was an apprentice electrical engineer, probably with Pye. Mary Ellen died on 26th September 1915 at the age of 55. She was buried in the St Giles burial ground (today the Ascension burial ground) on Huntingdon Road, Cambridge. On the same headstone is her daughter Nellie May, wife of BT Wolfe, who died two years after Mary Ellen. Samuel died in Cambridge on September 17th 1930, and was buried in the same plot. He was 69 years old. The headstone is easily found, immediately to the east of the famous memorial to Ludwig Wittgenstein.

Emma Mortlock
Born Needingworth 1862. Emma was baptised at Holywell church on 1st June 1873, when she was 11 years old. Emma went into service as a nursemaid in the household of the farmer John Hall at Cross Hall near Eaton Socon in Bedfordshire, actually a few miles from Needingworth across the county border. In Eaton Socon she met the carpenter Thomas Smith, and they married there in 1882, when Emma was 20 years old. They had four children: Thomas, Merrington, Edwin and Florence. However, a series of tragedies struck the family during the 1890s. In December 1892, Emma died. She was just thirty years old. Five years later, her husband Thomas also died, leaving the children as orphans.

By the time of the 1901 census, the two younger children Edwin and Florence were living with their grandparents Thomas and Eliza Mortlock in Needingworth. Merrington, however, was an inmate in Bedford Prison at the age of sixteen. On 2nd November 1900 the Cambridge Independent Press had reported that Merrington was charged at Huntingdon Assizes, along with three other youths, with the rape of one Florence Emily Swales in St Neots. Four other youths were also charged with being implicated. The rape charges were dropped against all the defendants, but several of the others were found guilty of carnal knowledge of an under age girl, and Merrington was found guilty of indecent assault, for which he received the sentence of twelve months hard labour. After leaving prison, he joined the Dragoon Guards at Northampton, giving his name as Merrington Mortlake Smith, incidentally declaring on his attestation form that he had never been 'imprisoned by the civil power'. He gave his brothers Edwin and Thomas as his next of kin, and in February 1904 he was posted to India, where he served for four years, followed by a spell of two years in South Africa. He was transferred to the Reserve in 1910, and discharged from duty five months before the outbreak of the First World War.

By 1911, Florence was living with her aunt Kate Mortlock at 80 Meanley Road, Manor Park in East London, where they worked together as dressmakers. Merrington was also in East London, working as a tram conductor and living at 165 Grove Road, Bethnal Green with his new bride, 19 year old Naomi, née West, whom he had married a few weeks earlier. They would have three children. One of Merrington's great-granddaughters in Australia sent me photographs of Merrington in his Dragoon Guards uniform, Merrington in his later years, and Merrington and Naomi with their three children. He died in east London in 1960, at the age of 75.

Hephzibah Mortlock
Born Needingworth 1864. Hephzibah was baptised at Holywell church on 1st June 1873, when she was 9 years old. At the age of 17 she was in service as a general servant in the household of the corn merchant and brewer Thomas Knights of Church Lane, St Ives, where her name was recorded as Hipzibah Mortloak by the census enumerator. Ten years later, she was still in service as a nurse, but this time many miles from home in the household of the woollen export merchant Charles Neumann of 15 St Pauls Road Manningham in Bradford, in the West Riding of Yorkshire. In 1901, Hephzibah was still in Yorkshire. She was living in Leeds, at 8 Lovell Street, in an area largely inhabited by East European immigrants. There are two people recorded in the household that night, Hephzibah and a 23 year old Music Hall entertainer called Elizabeth May, who is described as a visitor. The intriguing detail is that Hephzibah's relationship to Head of Household is described as sister. Infuriatingly, of course, the head of the household's name is not given, but the only possibility is Hephzibah's younger sister Kate, who was recorded that night as a visitor to a house in East London.

Annoyingly, I have not yet found Hephzibah on the 1911 census. But whatever befell her in the years in between, Hephzibah returned to Needingworth, because she died there in 1946, apparently unmarried, and was buried in the Holywell-cum-Needingworth churchyard at the age of 84, beside the grave of her grandmother, my great-great-great-grandmother, Kezia Mansfield. She shares the headstone with her younger brother. The inscription reads In loving memory of Hephzibah Mortlock who entered into rest 10th March 1946. Also her brother JOHN MORTLOCK who entered into rest 1st October 1944 aged 71 years. Resting.

Eliza Mortlock
Born Needingworth 1865. She was baptised at Holywell church on 1st June 1873, when she was 8 years old. My great-grandmother - see below.

Thomas Mortlock
Born Needingworth 1867. Thomas was baptised at Holywell church on 1st June 1873, when he was 6 years old. Like his father and brothers, Thomas became a bricklayer. On Christmas Eve 1891 he married 21 year old Fanny Butcher of Over, a Cambridgeshire village near to Needingworth, and they lived at 5 Victoria Street in Cambridge, a short walk from the home of his brother Samuel. They had four children, Frances, Edwin, Nellie and Katie, but by 1911 the family had returned in some style to Needingworth, where they moved into Langham House in the High Street, Thomas describing himself as a builder and manager. Had he taken over the family business from his Uncle John? Mortlocks in Needingworth today are probably descendants of Thomas and John. Thomas died in Cambridge in 1948 at the age of 80.

Kate Ann Mortlock
Born Needingworth 1869. Kate was born in the last quarter of the year, but her death was registered before the end of December.

Kate Mortlock
Born Needingworth 1871. She was given the same name as her sister, who had been born and died two years previously. But this Kate would turn out to be one of the longest lived of the Mortlocks. Kate was baptised at Holywell church on 1st June 1873, when she was 2 years old. Baptised and known to the family under the abbreviated form of the name, she was recorded as Catherine on the 1891 census when living as a general servant in the household of the corn merchant Richard Mutton in the Sheep Market, St Ives. Kate appears to have been living in Leeds in Yorkshire at the turn of the century, because her older sister Hephzibah was living at 8 Lovell Street, and she described her relationship to the absent head of the household there as sister. Kate herself was a visitor on the night of the 1901 census in the house of a widow, Eliza Lindsay, at 28 Latimer Road West Ham in East London. She gave her occupation as a typist. Kate was soon living in East London herself, because in 1911 she was recorded as the head of the household at 80 Meanley Road Manor Park in Bethnal Green. She was a self-employed dressmaker, and living with her as a dressmaker's assistant was her niece Florence Smith, the daughter of her sister Emma who had died in 1892.

In the second quarter of 1917, when Kate was 45 years old, she married John Payne at Romford in Essex, and they lived in Westcliff-on-Sea in the suburbs of Southend. But Kate came back to Needingworth after John's death. She died herself in 1955. Her grave in Holywell-cum-Needingworth churchyard reads: In Loving Memory of KATE PAYNE, Widow of John Charles Payne, Late of Westcliff-on-Sea and Daughter of Thomas M and Eliza Mortlock, who entered into rest 26th June 1955 aged 83 years. Until the day break and the shadows flee away.

John Mortlock
Born Needingworth 1873. John was baptised at Holywell church on 1st June 1873. Like his father and brothers, John became a bricklayer. He married Mary Webster in Needingworth in the 4th quarter of 1896. They seem to have spent the rest of their lives in Needingworth. They had four children, Thompson, Stanley, Lillian and Ethel. John was a master builder, and was a significant member of the Swavesey Baptist community. He rebuilt the Swavesey Bethel church in 1913. Mary died in 1943, and was buried in Holywell-cum-Needingworth churchyard. John died in in 1944, and is buried in a grave near to hers, beside the grave of his grandmother, my great-great-great-grandmother, Kezia Mansfield. He shares the inscription with his older sister Hephzibah: In loving memory of Hephzibah Mortlock who entered into rest 10th March 1946. Also her brother JOHN MORTLOCK who entered into rest 1st October 1944 aged 71 years. Resting.

Ann Caroline Mortlock
Born Needingworth 1874. Ann's birth was registered in the second quarter of the year, but her death was registered before the year ended.

Jeanette Mortlock
Born Needingworth 1875. Jeanette's birth was registered under the name Jannetta, and she was baptised at Needingworth church on 18 April 1875 under the name Jennetta. However, by the age of sixteen she had adopted the use of the name Jeanette, and this she remained until nearly the end. She was in service in 1891 as a general servant in the household of the brewer and malster James Knights of Mill House in Hemingford Grey, the next village to Needingworth. James Knights may well have been related to the brewer Thomas Knights of St Ives, in whose household her sister Hephzibah had been a servant ten years earlier.

Jeanette married John James Manning Medlock at Needingworth church on 10th March 1897 when she was 22 years old. Medlock was from Cambridge, but the 1901 census finds Jeanette and James living in Station Street East, Coventry in Warwickshire, where James was the superintendent of a tramcar shed. They had two children, Reginald and Doris, and living with them was Jeanette's sister Julia, who gave her occupation as a cook, presumably for another household. Ten years later, there were three more children, Vincent, Maud and Ada, although Maud was actually the illegitimate daughter of Jeanette's sister Julia. Living in the household was Johns's cousin Arthur Medlock, also born in Cambridge, and working as a tram conductor.

In 1925, John died at the age of 56. Jeanette died in 1942, in Salisbury in Wiltshire, while visiting her daughter Doris. She was 72 years old, and her death was registered under the name Jeanetta.

Julia Mortlock
Born Needingworth 1876. She left home to work as a cook, and in 1901 she was living in the household of her sister Jeanette and husband John in Station Street East, Coventry in Warwickshire. In 1902 or 1903, Julia had an illegitimate daughter, who she called Maud. In 1911, Maud was living with Julia's sister Jeanette, and was recorded as Maud Medlock, the daughter of Jeanette and her husband John, although her birthplace was recorded as Cambridge rather than Coventry. At the same census, the 36 year old Julia Julia was still a cook, this time at Berners Hall near Ongar in Essex. This was the home of James, Charles and Caroline Glasse, two brothers and a sister from Morwenstowe in Cornwall who managed the estate and farmed the land.

In 1917, Julia Mortlock was recorded in the Chelmsford Chronicle as one of the subscribers to a retirement gift presented by her employer James Glasse to the Rector of Willingale Doe. In the last quarter of 1922, Julia's daughter Maud married John Middleton in Coventry. She gave her father's name as John Medlock. A photograph around the time of her marriage shows Jeanette sitting bottom right with Maud beside her. Soon after, Maud and John Middleton emigrated to Australia. On the 18th July 1924, the Chelmsford Chronicle reported in its wills and bequests column that Mr JF Glass (sic) of Berners Hall had left £50 to his housekeeper Miss Julia Mortlock if in his service, and one months wages to other servants. His entire estate amounted to almost £25,000. The Berners Hall Farm was bought by the Co-operative Society, who still run it today.

In Australia, Maud had two daughters, Moya and Aileen Julia (does the middle name of her second daughter suggest that Maud did indeed know who her real mother was?). Both girls, Julia's granddaughters, lived into their eighties, dying within a few months of each other in 2011. Maud herself had lived into her nineties, dying on 15th July 1997. Her granddaughter Judy recalls that right up until her death, her mind was as sharp as a whip.  She and my mum would write to each other every week and her handwriting was perfect. It does not appear that Julia ever married, and she returned to Needingworth, where she died in 1957. Her grave in Needingworth churchyard reads: In Loving Memory of JULIA MORTLOCK who entered into rest 7th February 1957 aged 80 years. Resting.

Ruth Elizabeth Mortlock
Born Needingworth 1877. In 1901, she was working as a nurse-housemaid in the household of the corn merchant Joseph Lyons in Gower Street, London. She was still living in the same household as a nurse in 1911, at Brixton Hill in Lambeth, South London. There are no marriages of a Ruth Mortlock in England after this date. It is not a common name, and there are only four possible registered deaths of a Ruth Mortlock, the most likely of which is a Ruth Mortlock who died at York in 1948.

Martha Ethel Mortlock
Born Needingworth 1879. Martha was still living at home with her parents in 1911 when she was 31 years old. The form listed no disability or infirmity. She never married, and died in Needingworth in 1935 at the age of 55. The memorial stone below her parents' headstone reads Also in ever loving memory of their daughters MARTHA ETHEL MORTLOCK who entered into rest February 14th 1935 RIP also of ALICE MAUD KEZIA MORTLOCK died 2nd June 1964 aged 83 years.

Alice Maud Kezia Mortlock
Born Needingworth 1881. Alice was still at home in 1901, but in 1911 she was living as a dressmaker on the premises of the drapers Spratt and Son, in Forest Gate, East London. She did not marry, and died in Cambridge in 1964 at the age of 83. The memorial stone below her parents' headstone reads Also in ever loving memory of their daughters MARTHA ETHEL MORTLOCK who entered into rest February 14th 1935 RIP also of ALICE MAUD KEZIA MORTLOCK died 2nd June 1964 aged 83 years.

Thomas's father John Mortlock died in Huntingdonshire in October 1872. He was 79 years old. An interesting incident is recorded the following year in the Holywell-cum-Needingworth parish records. On the 1st June 1873, Thomas and Eliza took the eight children that had been born to them so far to church and had them baptised, probably with water from the holy well in the churchyard which gives the hamlet its name. The occasion was the baptism of their new infant son, John. Perhaps the parish had a new Rector who was filled with enthusiasm, or perhaps Thomas and Eliza underwent a conversion of some kind - Thomas himself had been baptised three months earlier. Or perhaps it was simply his father's death that had concentrated Thomas's mind.

Thomas declared himself as self-employed on the 1911 census, when he was 69. He died seven years later. Eliza lived for almost another twenty years, dying in Needingworth in the first quarter of 1938 when she was a few weeks short of her 99th birthday. Their gravestone in Needingworth churchyard reads In loving memory of THOMAS MOODY MORTLOCK who entered into rest March 3rd 1919 in his 78th year. "Today Thou shalt be with me in Paradise". Also of ELIZA MORTLOCK wife of the above who entered into rest March 23rd 1938 aged 98. Until the day break and the shadows flee away. Six of their children also have memorials in the churchyard, two of them next to Thomas and Eliza's headstone.

My great-grandmother Eliza Mortlock was living at home in Needingworth at the time of the 1871 census, but by the age of 15 she was living as a servant in the household of James Stevens, a grocer of Alexandra Place in St Ives. Four years later, Eliza married William Huckle Cornwell, an agricultural labourer, on the 22nd March 1885 at St Andrew's Church, Histon, Cambridgeshire. William signed the register with a cross, indicating that he was illiterate, but Eliza was able to sign her own name. The witnesses were John Royal Hounsham and William's sister Hannah. If Hounsham were William's friend and witness, it suggests that Hannah Cornwell was Eliza's, and that Eliza and William had met because Eliza and Hannah were friends. John Hounsham and Hannah Cornwell would marry later in the year.

William and Eliza lived in High Street, Histon, and their first child was born the following December. By 1891, they had two further children, and then the Cornwells moved a mile or so to Oakington before the next census, and were living in Dry Drayton Road. There would be five further children before their youngest child my grandfather Edmund Stanley Cecil Cornwell was born in 1903. These are the nine children of William and Eliza Cornwell:

    Clarence Charles Cornwell
Born Histon, Cambridgeshire on the 19th December 1885. His birth was registered under the surname Cornell rather than Cornwell, but when he was baptised at St Andrew's church in Histon on 17th January 1886, his surname was recorded as Cornwell.
In 1911, Charles was still living at home and working as a farm labourer. However, in the second quarter of 1911 he married Caroline Flack of Trumpington in the Chesterton Registration District. When the First World War broke out, Charles enlisted as a private soldier with the Cambridgeshire Regiment, but was transferred to become a Lance-Corporal in the Military Foot Police. His medal record shows that he landed in France on the 14th February 1915, when he was 29 years old. He survived the War, and remained in the forces, joining the Grenadier Guards. My mother remembers him visiting her family in uniform when she was a child in the 1940s. Clarence died in Cambridge in the 4th quarter of 1956.

Lily Elizabeth Cornwell
Born Histon, Cambridgeshire on the 13th August 1887. Her birth was registered under the surname Cornell rather than Cornwell, but when she was baptised at St Andrew's church in Histon on 11th September, her surname was recorded as Cornwell. She went to work as a nanny in France. She married Thomas Shemilt at Leigh in Stoke-on-Trent in Staffordshire in 1909. Shemilt was born at Godstone in Staffordshire in 1884. In 1911, the couple lived with Thomas's mother Emma Shemilt, née Cope, who was a widow; her husband of three years, George Shemilt of Stone, Staffordshire, had died in 1885. In 1923, Lily's sister Ruth was living with her husband John nearby at Corton. In 1944, Lily's father William was staying with them at Rough Park Bungalow, Handsall Ridware near Rugeley when William died. Lily died at Burton-upon-Trent in Staffordshire in 1957, at the age of 70.

Walter Eric Cornwell
Born Histon, Cambridgeshire on the 29th June 1889. His birth was registered under the surname Cornell rather than Cornwell, but when he was baptised at St Andrew's church, Histon on 4th August his surname was recorded as Cornwell. He married Gertrude Simpkins in the Chesterton registration district in the second quarter of 1915. Walter died in Cambridge in 1967 at the age of 77.

Violet Maude Cornwell
Born Histon, Cambridgeshire on the 15th September 1892. She was the first of the children whose birth was registered under the surname Cornwell. She was baptised at St Andrew's church, Histon on 23rd October. She married Ernest Frederick Golding at St Andrew's church, Oakington on 3rd February 1912. Golding was a farm labourer who also came from Oakington. Violet died in September 1961 in Manchester.

Catherine Ayliffe Grace Cornwell
Born Histon, Cambridgeshire on 15th February 1894. She was baptised at St Andrew's church, Histon on 25 March. She worked in service at Roxford Grange at Hertingfordbury in Hertfordshire. She married Frederick George Cannon on the 30th August 1919 at Hertingfordbury, Hertfordshire. They lived in Hertfordshire. Catherine died in Hertfordshire in the last quarter of 1962.

Frances Eliza Cornwell
Born Histon, Cambridgeshire on the 29th April 1895. She was the last of the children to have her birth registered under the surname Cornell. When she was baptised at St Andrew's church, Histon on 26th May, her surname was recorded as Cornwell. She married Charles Hewitt at Elham in Kent in July 1924. They lived in Worthing in Sussex, where I visited and stayed with them in the early 1960s, although I do not remember this. She died in 1972. Her daughter Joan remained great friends with her cousin, my mother, until she died in 2010.

Ruth Mortlock Cornwell
Born Oakington, Cambridgeshire on 30th April 1899 and baptised along with her brother William at St Andrew's church Oakington on 25th August 1901. She married John Wheeldon at St Andrew's church Oakington on 5 Jan 1921. John was a platelayer from Burton-on-Trent in Staffordshire (Ruth's sister Lily lived in Staffordshire, which may be significant). Two years later in 1923, they were living at Colton Hall Barn Cottages, Corton near Rugeley in Staffordshire when Ruth's younger brother Edmund was married from that address. In 1944, Ruth's sister Lily and her husband were living four miles away at Hamstall Ridware, and it is possible that they were near neighbours at this time, too. Ruth died in March 1967 at Hastings in East Sussex.

William Arthur James Cornwell
Born Oakington, Cambridgeshire on 28th June 1901. and baptised along with his sister Ruth at St Andrew's church Oakington on 25th August 1901. He married Gladys Shepherd in the last quarter of 1927 in Bethnal Green, London. In later life he lived in south London, where he kept a garage. I can just remember visiting and staying with him in the 1960s. He died in Redbridge in the last quarter of 1974.

Edmund Stanley Cecil Cornwell
Born Oakington, Cambridgeshire on 31st July 1903, and baptised at St Andrew's church, Oakington on 27th September. My grandfather - see below.

   

When Edmund Stanley 'Stan' Cornwell was born, Stan's father William gave his occupation on the birth certificate as a bricklayer's labourer, but by 1911 he is shown as a roadman for Chesterton Rural District Council, and this would also appear on his death certificate 33 years later. William had adapted his parents' surname of Cornell into Cornwell. Nevertheless, some of Stan's siblings had their births registered under the surname Cornell rather than Cornwell. In later years,

Edmund was always known as Stan. He married my grandmother Winifred Ellen Reynolds in 1923. She came from the neighbouring village of Dry Drayton, but they married in Lichfield, Staffordshire when they were both just 19 years old. They gave false ages to acquire the certificate, as one of them had to be of age, that is to say 21 or over. They were in Staffordshire because my grandmother was pregnant, and they had run away to get married. Stan's older sister Ruth lived at Colton on the outskirts of Rugeley, and she arranged the marriage for them. Their first child was born less than three months later. He had a learning disability, and lived with his mother for the rest of her life.

Stan and Win returned to Cambridge after the birth of their first child, and lived firstly at Oakington with Stan's parents and then in Castle Row near to Win's parents. In the late 1920s they moved away, first to Barway near Ely and then to Grunty Fen on the other side of the river, before settling in Little Thetford.

His parents William and Eliza were still living in Oakington, in a house in Wheeler Street. Eliza trained and worked as a midwife, cycling around the south Cambridgeshire villages. She died of a cerebral hemorrhage on 16th February 1929 at the age of 63. William outlived his wife, and died at the age of 80 on December 3rd 1944, while staying with his daughter Lily at Hamstall Ridware near Rugeley in Staffordshire. My mother tells a story of how, after he died, another daughter Frances went to his cottage wanting to retrieve a memento. Unable to get in, she smashed a window and took a tea strainer off of the draining board. My mother knew him as Grandpa William, and she was photographed with him in July 1938, when she was two and he was seventy-four.

These are the nine children of Edmund Stanley Cornwell and Winifred Ellen Reynolds:

    Cecil Thomas Walter Cornwell
Born Colton, Staffordshire on 29th October 1923. Cecil had a learning disability, and lived with his mother for the rest of her life. After her death, he lived in a care home at Toft, Cambridgeshire. He died in his sleep there in February 1990.

Stanley Arthur James Cornwell
Born Oakington, Cambridgeshire in 1925, and baptised at St Andrew's church, Oakington on 27th September. Known to the family as Jim. This suggests that the family were living with Stan's parents at the time. He signed up for the Navy in the Second World War. He was badly injured on 16th September 1942 aboard HMS Warspite. He was just 17 years old. The battleship was taking part in the Salerno Landings off the toe of Italy when it was hit by a German glider bomber.
This photograph shows the ratings being addressed shortly before the battle. Jim is in this photograph somewhere. He never recovered from his injuries, and died in 1946 at the age of twenty. He was buried in Little Thetford Cemetery, and is mentioned on the Little Thetford war memorial.

Jack Travers Cornwell
Born 2 Castle Row, Cambridge in 1928, and baptised in St Giles's church, Cambridge on 4th March. He was named after Jack Travers Cornwell, a 16 year old posthumous winner of the Victoria Cross, who at the time was one of the great heroes of the First World War. He married Edna Martin in Ely in 1954, and they lived at Mepal, Cambridgeshire.

Reginald Trevor Cornwell
Born River Bank, Barway, Cambridgeshire, 0n 28th January 1930, and baptised at St Nicholas's church, Barway on 6th April. Known to the family as Reggie. Married Beryl Dennis at Ely in 1954. Two years later, their father being dead, Reggie gave away my mother when she married. Reggie and Beryl lived at Little Thetford and then at Wilburton, Cambridgeshire. They had three children, two boys and a girl. Reggie died on 16th August 2001.

Edward Malcolm Cornwell
Born River Bank, Barway, Cambridgeshire 1931, and baptised at St Nicholas's church, Barway on 7th June. Known to the family as Malcolm. Married Betty Rudderham at Ely in 1950. They lived at Wilburton, and had five children, four girls and a boy. Betty died in 2015, Malcolm in August 2016.

Betty Katherine Cornwell
Born River Bank, Barway,Cambridgeshire on 1st December 1932, and baptised at St Nicholas's church, Barway on 7th June 1933. Betty contracted polio as a child, and was confined to a wheelchair for the rest of her life. She spent time at Manfield Hospital in Northampton, and then after 1956 living in the home for the physically disabled at Dorincourt, Leatherhead, Surrey, later the Queen Elizabeth Foundation. She died in Leatherhead in 1987.

June Frances Cornwell
Born Red Fen Lane, Grunty Fen, Little Thetford, Cambridgeshire in 1934. She married Keith Anthony Palmer at St George's church, Little Thetford on 9th April 1955. They lived at Little Downham and had two children, a boy and a girl.

Marion Patricia Cornwell
Born Red Fen Lane, Grunty Fen, Little Thetford, Cambridgeshire on 27th February 1936. She married Graham Knott at St George's church, Little Thetford on 4th August 1956. They lived at Little Thetford and then in Cambridge, and had three children, all boys. Marion died in Cambridge on 30th June 2016.

Albert Paul Cornwell
Born Front Street, Little Thetford, Cambridgeshire in 1937. Known to the family as Sonny. He married Shirley Carter at St Mary's church, Ely in 1957. They lived in Ely and had two children, both boys.

   

Stan was a farrier, working with horses on farms in the Isle of Ely. During the Second World War he was in the Cambridgeshire Regiment. He was missing for six months before his family discovered he was in a hospital. He is the only one of my grandparents that I did not know - he died of a heart attack at the age of 50, in 1953, nine years after his father died and eight years before I was born. He is buried in Little Thetford cemetery.

 
AT A GLANCE: DETAILS FROM REGISTERS AND CENSUS DATA
all addresses are in Huntingdonshire or Cambridgeshire unless otherwise stated.
 
  Birthplace 1881 census 1891 census 1901 census 1911 census married to
  (date registered) age address age address age address age address date of marriage

Thomas


Swavesey, Cambs (1841)


39


High Street, Needingworth


49


Front Street, Needingworth


59


Front Street, Needingworth


69


Bluntisham Road, Needingworth


Thomas married Eliza Mansfield on the 16th January 1861 at Needingworth, Huntingdonshire


Eliza
(Mansfield)

Needingworth, Hunts (1839)


40


High Street, Needingworth


50


Front Street, Needingworth


60


Front Street, Needingworth


71


Bluntisham Road, Needingworth


Eliza married Thomas Moody Mortlock on the 16th January 1861 at Needingworth, Huntingdonshire

                     

Samuel


Swavesey, Cambs (1861)


20


High Street, Needingworth


30


15 Gloucester Street, Cambridge


40


15 Gloucester Street, Cambridge


50


15 Gloucester Street, Cambridge


Samuel married Mary Ellen Toyn in July 1884 at Spilsby in Lincolnshire


Emma


Needingworth, Hunts (1862)


20


Cross Hall, Eaton Socon, Beds

 
28


Mill Cottages, Eaton Socon, Beds

 
Emma was dead by the time of the 1901 census

     
Emma married Thomas Smith in the 4th quarter of 1882, at Eaton Socon, Bedfordshire


Hephzibah


Needingworth, Hunts (1864)

 
18

 
Church Lane, St Ives

 
26


15 St Pauls Road, Manningham, Bradford, Yorks

39

 
8 Lovell Street, Leeds, Yorks

 
I have not yet found Hephzibah on the 1911 census

 


Eliza


Needingworth, Hunts (1865)

 
15

   
Alexandra Place, St Ives

 
27

 
High Street, Histon


37


Dry Drayton Road, Oakington


47


Dry Drayton Road, Oakington


Eliza married William Cornwell on the 22nd March 1885 at Histon, Cambridgeshire


Thomas


Needingworth, Hunts (1867)

 
13

 
High Street, Needingworth

 
23

 
Front Street, Needingworth


32

     
5 Victoria Street, Cambridge

 
43

 
   
Langham House, High Street, Needingworth


Thomas married Fanny Butcher on Christmas Eve 1891 at Needingworth, Huntingdonshire


Kate


Needingworth, Hunts (1869)

 
Kate was dead by the time of the 1881 census

             


Kate
(Catherine)


Needingworth, Hunts (1871)

 
9

 
High Street, Needingworth

   
19

  
Sheep Market, St Ives

 
29

   
28 Latimer Road, West Ham, London


39


80 Meanley Road, Manor Park, London


Kate married John Charles Payne in the second quarter of 1917 at Romford, Essex


John


Needingworth, Hunts (1873)

 
7

 
High Street, Needingworth

   
17

   
Front Street, Needingworth

 
28


Church Street, Needingworth


37

     
Church Street, Needingworth


John married Mary Webster in the 4th quarter of 1896 at Needingworth, Huntingdonshire


Ann


Needingworth, Hunts (1874)

 
Ann was dead by the time of the 1881 census

             


Jeanette
(Jannetta, Jannett)


Needingworth, Hunts (1875)

 
5

 
High Street, Needingworth

 
15

       
Mill House, Hemingford Grey


26


138 Station Street East, Coventry, Warks


36


138 Station Street East, Coventry, Warks


Jeanette maried John Medlock on the 10th March 1897 at Needingworth, Huntingdonshire


Julia


Needingworth, Hunts (1876)

 
4

 
High Street, Needingworth

 
14

 
Front Street, Needingworth


24

 
138 Station Street East, Coventry, Warks

 
36

   
Berners Hall, Ongar, Essex

 

Ruth


Needingworth, Hunts (1877)

 
3


High Street, Needingworth


13


Front Street, Needingworth


23


21 Gower Street, London

 
Brixton Hill, Lambeth, London

 

Martha


Needingworth, Hunts (1879)

 
1


High Street, Needingworth


11


Front Street, Needingworth


21


Front Street, Needingworth


31


Bluntisham Road, Needingworth

 

Alice


Needingworth, Hunts (1881)

 
3 days


High Street, Needingworth


10


Front Street, Needingworth


19


Front Street, Needingworth


29


26-34 Wood Grange Road, Forest Gate, London

 
     
   
     
Ages are as shown on census.
(name) after name indicates different given name on some censuses.
(number) after street name indicates more than one Mortlock household in that street.
 

 

 

LIFE GOES ON: AN INTRODUCTION

MY GRANDPARENTS - I - MY GREAT-GRANDPARENTS - I - MY GREAT-GREAT-GRANDPARENTS - I - MY GREAT-GREAT-GREAT-GRANDPARENTS

THE SIXTEEN FAMILIES

KNOTT - I - BOWLES - I - WATERS - I - HARRALL - I - PAGE - I - WISEMAN - I - CROSS - I - CARTER

CORNWELL - I - HUCKLE - I - MORTLOCK - I - MANSFIELD - I - REYNOLDS - I - CARTER - I - ANABLE - I - STEARN

CHRONOLOGY - I - DRAMATIS PERSONAE - I - WHERE PEOPLE CAME FROM - I - CALENDAR

MAP OF ELY - I - MAP OF MEDWAY
MAP OF CAMBRIDGE AND DISTRICT

THE WORKHOUSE

WORLD WAR I - I - WORLD WAR II

simonknott.co.uk I home I e-mail

LIFE GOES ON