60 Ainsworth Street, Cambridge

60 Ainsworth Street

Number 60, otherwise known as Wilton Cottage, is one of a terrace of four houses with front gardens on the east side of Ainsworth Street.

1881 census

Thomas Carrott, head, 38, engine fitter on GER, b. Boston, Lincolnshire
Alice Carrott, wife, 33, b. Garstang, Lancashire
Thomas Carrott, son, 12, scholar, b. Peterborough, Northamptonshire

1891 census

William Smith, head, 71, living on own means, b. Hilgay, Norfolk
Elizabeth Smith, wife, 61, living on own means, b. West Wickham, Kent

Previous census returns show William Smith living on King Street in 1851 and 1861, when he was a master baker.

His first wife was Frances, and they had two sons, William and Alfred Charles.  Frances died in 1866 and William married Maria Clark on 12 November 1867.  William remained a baker and moved to Acton, Middlesex and then Sunbury, Middlesex. Maria died in 1883.

In 1891 William was living with Elizabeth Smith, from West Wickham in Kent.  The census records her as his wife.

William, Frances and Maria are all buried together in Mill Road Cemetery.

1901 census

Matthias H Mann, head, 59, bricklayer, b. Royston, Hertfordshire
Caroline Mann, wife, 59, b. Royston, Hertfordshire
Edwin E Mann, son, 16, bricklayer, b. Royston, Hertfordshire
Dora Mann, daughter, 14, b. Royston, Hertfordshire

1911 census

Robert Edward Parker, head, 58, foreman of gravel diggers, b. Croft Marsh, Lincolnshire
Sarah Eliza Parker, wife, 53, b. Barton, Cambridgeshire
Walter Edward Parker, son, 31, naval pensioner invalid, b. Cambridge
Emma Eliza Parker, daughter, 26, lupus 11 years old, b. Cambridge
Fredrick Flack, brother-in-law, single, 42, Royal Marine pensioner, coal porter, b. Cambridge
Susannah Smith, lodger, single, 82, b. Cambridge

Robert and Sarah Parker had been married for 36 years and had six children.

Their son Walter had been invalided out of the Royal Navy in August 1910 with ‘disseminated sclerosis’ –  what we now know as multiple sclerosis. He died in 1914. Their daughter Emma is described as having had lupus since the age of 11. Both MS and lupus are autoimmune diseases, and they share genetic risk factors and many symptoms.

Emma Eliza Parker married George Larkins in 1916, was widowed in 1919, and is recorded in the 1921 census as living at 51 Ainsworth Street, where she ran a shop. She died in 1922.

Susannah Smith, the elderly lodger, had lived next door at 62 Ainsworth Street in 1891 and 1901 with her brother’s family.

1921 census

Sarah Eliza Parker, head, 63, widow, home duties, b. Cambridge
James Brown, boarder, 33, compositor, Cambridge University Press, b. Cambridge

Source: 1851–1921 Census, England, Select Marriages, 1538–-1973, Mill Road Cemetery, UK, Royal Navy Registers of Seamen’s Services, 1848–1939