44 Bridge Street, Hobb’s Passage

History of 44 Bridge Street

West of Bridge Street in the Nineteenth Century

1662/4 Robert Abbott succeeded by Nicholas Apethorp, maltster

1692 property bought as an investment for Peirce Dent, apothecary and his wife Deborah.

1785 Dent grandson sold property to Joseph Willett, gardener and greengrocer. At time property consisted of two tenements and a ‘garden ground’. Willett occupied one of the tenements: according to evidence given in 1858 by Robert Hills, paper hanger, he lived ‘in a house now occupied by Twiney the chemist next to Hobb’s court. then called Willett’s yard.’ The yard was called Hobb’s in 1858 because William Setchfield Hobbs, himself a chemist, bought the whole property in 1848.

1851

William S Hobbs, 51, chemist and druggist, b Whittlesea

Mary A, 53,  b Whitechapel

Daniel, nephew, 6, b Peterborough

William A Ewen, 24, assistant chemist and druggist, b Spalding

Mary Bensbard, 19, house servant, b Great Wilbraham

James M Foster, lodger, 63, retired engine maker, b Cambridge

James Michael Foster was the son of Richard Foster of Thompson’s Lane. James died Castle Street, 24th Apr. 1853.

1861

William S Hobbs, 60, chemist, b Whittlesea

(43?) William Hills, 33, hairdresser, b Surrey

Hobb’s Passage:

(1) Alfred Brockett, 29, fly driver, b Guilden Morden

(2) John Fordham, 28, miller, b Chesterton

(3) Charles Cooper, 29, college servant, b Cambridge

1873 bought from Daniel Hobbs by St John’s for £996. It was a house and chemist’s shop with a passage leading to a warehouse and two small cottages and a stable.

1911

Horace Coulson, 38, chemist, b Cambridge

Alice Charlotte, 29, b Elsworth

Horace Bernard, 3, b Cambridge

Gordon Neale, 8 mos, b Cambridge

Gertrude Emily, 17, servant, b Dry Drayton

1913

Horace Coulson, photographic and dispensing chemist

Coulson’s Passage:

1 & 2 Horace Coulson, chemist, storerooms

3 J Mayes

Hobb’s Passage, Bridge Street, print by R Genlloud c.1926