81 East Road, c.1900. Old Working Men’s Club on the left, with Barbrooke’s grocery in background

81 East Road, Cambridge

History of 81 East Road

1913

Robert W Moden, grocer, oil and colourman

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1937

Cecil D Barbrooke, grocer

Extract from Elizabeth Anscombe’s Reminiscences of Wittgenstein (Oxford University Press, 2025) sent by MJM 2026:

When he (Wittgenstein) was in Cambridge in the nineteen thirties he had lodgings above a grocer’s shop. He helped these people at a time of difficulty for them by giving them a good deal of money in advance, which he took back in goods as he needed them. They were devoted to him; I remember his taking me to see them at one time. I was repelled by the desolately empty and unloved in appearance of their highly respectable sitting room.

Accompanying note says “Anscombe is referring to the Barbrooke family, with whom LW had spent Christmas 1941 directly after Francis Skinner’s death.

Ludwig Wittgenstein (died 1951) was for many the greatest philosopher of the 20th century and for a time Professor of Philosophy in Cambridge. Anscombe is regarded also as one of the most important philosophers and died in 2001. Both are buried at St Giles Cemetery on the Huntingdon Road.