1 Fallowfield

History of 1 Fallowfield

Sue Applin talked about her family in 2017. Her parents were Ralph Hugh Crawley (1911-2005) and Hilda A Mummery (1913-1990). Her mother’s parents were Henry Thomas Mummery (b.1881 Bethnal Green -1947) and Charlotte Rebecca Kilner (b. 1880 Hackney – 1942). They were married in June 1905 at St Mark’s Victoria Park. Henry served in the Royal Garrison Artillery in WWI; he was the victim of a gas attack which left him blind and with damaged lungs. (He is recorded as the recipient of the Silver War Badge.) The charity which specialised in assisting blind ex-servicemen, St Dunstan’s, retrained Henry and supported the family when they moved to Saffron Walden.

Ralph Crawley came from a farming family who ran Yews Farm in Hadstock, near Linton in Cambridgeshire. His parents were Arthur Henry Crawley (b. 1869 Sutton) and Elizabeth Ann Bellairs (b. 1873 Newborough, Northants). When Ralph and Hilda  married in 1937 they moved into the new development of Fallowfield in Cambridge.

At the outbreak of WWII Ralph volunteered for the army as a driver. He was eventually sent to Egypt and served there, in Italy and afterwards in Palestine.

Hilda was pregnant at the beginning of the war but that didn’t stop her from volunteer work.

After the war Ralph had hoped to return to work in the fire brigade but a confrontation with a senior officer put pay to his chances.

Eventually he found full employment at what became Ciba Geigy in Duxford, the factory where the ‘super glue’ araldite was developed.