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A doorway and window are heavily covered in ivy, with a bicycle parked to the right and a cobblestone path in the foreground.

Wray’s Court, Sidney Street: Miss Sarah Starling, ladies hair dresser

Wray’s Court, Sidney Street

History of Wray's Court

Oil painting of a narrow courtyard flanked by stone buildings with a tall, slender lamp post standing in the center.

Wray’s Court, Sidney Street by Mary C Greene (MoC)

1841 Wray’s Court

John Roudd, 31, tallow chandler

 

John Heston, 22, police officer

 

Childer Starling, 57, shoe maker

 

Simon Moden, 73, lawyer [b 1768 Cherry Hinton; d 1847; b St Michael]

Mary Ann Boud, daughter, 43

John Boud, 13

Mary Boud had married her first husband, John Boud, 28.8.1827 St Michael’s Cambridge. In 1851 Mary Ann Boud [Bowd?], dress maker, b Cambridge, was living in Jesus Lane with her son, John William, 22, tailor, b Cambridge, and Rebekah, 24, daughter in law, b Cambridge. In 1850 at All Saints Cambridge John William Boud married Rebekah Locke Bailey. Mary later married Rebekah’s father, John Bailey b 1791, Denton, Norfolk.

In 1853 Mary Ann Boud and her son, daughter in law and their two children, William 11 mos. and Edward [Edwin] 3 wks and John Bailey, emigrated from Liverpool on the SS Golconda. They  sailed up the Mississippi River from New Orleans to Keokuk, Iowa.

John William Boud died, possibly of yellow fever, and Rebekah remarried, William Bacon, in Keokuk, in 1855. Mary died in Hamilton, Hancock, Illinois in 1867. (email in 2022 from GS)

 

Mary Cragnall, 48, upholsterer’s assistant

 

William Taylor, 49, cabinet maker

 

Robert Woodhouse, 45, cabinet maker

 

Robert Clayton, 60, fishmonger

1851 Wray’s Court

William Watson Headdey, 65, college butler, b Trumpington

Elizabeth Chess Headdy, 60, b Cambridge

Louisa, 22, governess from home, b Cambridge

Maria, 17, b Cambridge

Maria Francis, servant, 22, b Bottisham

Henry John Martin, 20, lodger, student Trinity College, b London

Charles Thomas Smith, 27, lodger, MA Univ Cambridge, b Middlesex

Several of those households in the 1851 census listed in Sidney Street are in 1861 listed in Wray’s Court i.e. Emma Harvey, Rebecca Woodhouse, Anne Starling.

1861

1.

Thomas Bradford, 32, cabinet maker, b Cambridge

Anne M, 32, b Cambridge

Walter, 16, b Cambridge

2.

Rebekah Woodhouse, 56, college servant, b Balsham

3.

Emma Harvey, 40, college servant, b Herts

Richard Elwood, lodger, 60, college servant, b Longstanton

4.

Thomas Ethridge, 63, carver & gilder, b London

Maryann, 50, b Cambridge

Thomas R, 3, b Cambridge

Mary Bentley, 60, upholsterer, b Cambs

5.

Elizabeth C Headdy, widow, 70, lodging house keeper, b Cambridge

Louisa, 31, governess, b  Cambridge

Sarah Sterling, 19, servant, b Essex

6.

Charles Starling, 40, shoe maker, b Cambridge

Elizabeth, 40, b Saffron Walden

Elizabeth, 8, b Cambridge

Fredrick, 5, b Cambridge

Charles, 3, b Cambridge

7.

Ann Starling, 46, dress maker, b Cambridge

Sarah, 30, ladies hair dress, b Cambridge

Lydia Mathews, 10, servant, b Cambridge


1913

(1) Mrs Coe

(2) Miss Clark

(3) Mrs Leech

Misses Sutton and Green, dressmakers

(4) Miss Maria Rowe

Miss Wood

(5) Mrs McLaughlin

W J Christmas, bakehouse

(6,7) Miss Sarah Starling, ladies hair dresser

Mrs Elizabeth Warren

(8) Barnet William Beales, tailor’s workshop


A narrow paved path leads through Wray's Court between two brick buildings, with a person sitting on steps in the background.

Wray’s Court, 1964 (MoC252/64)

1962

(1) Mrs Woolard

(2) Stanislau Murawska

(3) Mrs Mitchell

(4) Douglas Sanders

(5) George W Bolton

(6) Mrs MacDonald

(7) Mrs Brett

A low-rise building with a plaster facade stands beside a narrow alleyway where a child and a dog play near brick buildings.

Wray’s Court, 1964 (MoC251/64)

Two white painted pillars frame a metal display stand filled with potted plants in front of a shopfront on Sidney Street.

Site of former entrance to Wray’s Court, Sidney Street (RGL2023)

 

 

Projects

  • Museum Exhibit Stories
  • Sidney Street

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