138 Ross Street, Cambridge Union, Council Home

History of 138 Ross Street

Down Your Street, 1984, chapter on Ross Street notes:

Mrs Francis remembers that a row of cottages formerly stood there, and she saw the children’s home being built. … The children’s home in Ross Street was for the illegitimate children of the girls from the old workhouse in Mill Road. Mrs Annie Amey was in charge of the nursery at the workhouse, now the Mill Road Maternity Hospital: “I looked after the babies until they were three, then they went to the children’s home in Ross Street.”

1942

In 2003 Mrs E M Dethridge wrote to the museum about her childhood Romsey Town:

I was born in the Mill Road Hospital in 1939. In 1942 my father was killed in Singapore at the age of 28 when I was 2 1/2. As a result of his death my family were taken into care at various places in the country and I was taken to the children’s home in Ross Street. The home was divided into two sections holding twelve boys one end and twelve girls the other with the dining area etc. in the centre where we sat on benches for our meals. We all had our set jobs to do, even the youngest, either cleaning shoes, making beds, sweeping and polishing floors with red polish. We used to play on the recreation field behind the home and for a special treat the older children were allowed to take the younger ones onto Coldhams Common where during the was we collected aeroplane plastic and the boys would make rings for the girls. When the air raids sounded all the children gathered under one set stairs. During the years I spend in the home until 1948, when I was adopted, I attended St Phillips School and St Phillips Church.

In 2020 Maggie Primeau wrote to Capturing Cambridge:

My sister and I were both sent to Ross Street in 1950 whilst our mother was convalescing after surgery. The Matron was very nice and when she became matron at the home for the blind I used to go there and read to the patients. I now live in the USA and at 80 can still remember it. I too went to St Philips school.