14 Stone Street, Cambridge

The Family of a Railway Engine Cleaner

Number 14 was one of a terrace of seven houses on the south side of Stone Street and was built in 1881.  The terrace was demolished, so this property no longer exists.

1885 – 1928

Electoral registers and census records show that Frederick Law lived at 14 Stone Street with his family from at least 1885 to 1924.   They have moved from Salmon Lane (some of which still exists, the rest is now the Grafton car park).

The 1891 Census tells us that Frederick is a 30 – year-old railway engine cleaner, who was born in the parish of St Mary the Less.  He married to Eliza Ambrose in 1878.  Eliza is now 29, and originally from Sudbury in Suffolk.

They have a 10-year-old daughter called Nellie (a pet name for Ellen) who goes to school and their 7-year-old nephew Charles H Ambrose is living with them.

By 1901 Ellen is a domestic servant and there is another daughter, 9-year-old Annie Elizabeth.

In 1905 Ellen marries Walter Salisbury, who grew up at 17 Stone Street.  The couple are living at 9 Stone Street in 1911.

The 1911 Census records that Frederick is still cleaning engines and is now a boiler washer for the locomotive department of the Great Eastern Railway.  Daughter Annie is 19 and a book binder.  They also record that they have had three children, one of whom has died.  The birth records show that they had a son called Frederick Charles in 1879.

Annie married Frederick Langford in 1920 and they live at 14 Stone Street until 1928.

Sources: 1881, 1891, 1901,1911 UK Census, 1939 Register, Cambridgeshire Baptisms, England & Wales Marriages (1837-2005),