8 Hooper Street

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A dairyman, a dressmaker, a printer, and a tobacconist

8 Hooper Street, also called 3 Belgrave Terrace, was built in the 1870s.

1881 census

Mary Ann Dring, 42, wife of retired farmer, Emneth, Norfolk
Susannah Laughton, visitor, 38, wife of butcher, b. Whitton, Huntingdon
Arthur Laughton, visitor, 5, b. Cambridgeshire
Augusta M. Pearson, lodger, 50, annuitant, b. Scotland

The first inhabitants were the Dring family, who ran a dairy business. The only family member in residence on census night in 1881 was Mary Ann Dring. She had a friend visiting, Susannah Laughton (and her young son Arthur), and a tenant, widow Augusta Pearson.

Her husband Jonathan – absent that night – was born in 1820 in Warboys on the edge of the Fens. He and his brothers (John and Johnson, confusingly) were tenant farmers. In 1861 he had a farm in Over, and in 1871 he was in Parson Drove near Wisbech. He and Mary Ann had a daughter Celia, born 1867. In 1881 Celia was away boarding at a school at 12 The Crescent, Wisbech.

In the Kelly’s Directory of 1883, Jonathan Dring of 8 Hooper Street was listed under the heading ‘Dairymen and cowkeepers’, as was his neighbour Henry Hymus.

Celia Dring became a milliner and dressmaker, and by 1901 was running a dressmaking business in Kensington with three employees.

1891 census

Samuel Bavey, 37, printer’s machine minder, b. Cambridge
Jane Bavey, 35, b. Cambridge
Arthur E Bavey, 12, scholar, b. Cambridge
Era Bavey, 7, scholar, b. Cambridge
Jessie Bavey, 5, scholar, b. Cambridge
Percy Bavey, 4, scholar, b. Cambridge
Florence Bavey, 1, b. Cambridge
Alice Unwin, sister, widow, 30, assistant in china shop, b. Cambridge

1901 census

Samuel Bavey, 49, printer’s machine minder, b. Cambridge
June Bavey, 45, b. Cambridge
Arthur Bavey, 22, printer’s machine minder, b. Cambridge
Jessie Bavey, 15, b. Cambridge
Perry Bavey, 14, b. Cambridge
Frederick Bavey, 5, b. Cambridge
Horace Bavey, 1, b. Cambridge
Alice Unwin, sister, widow, 40, shop assistant, b. Cambridge

Samuel Bavey’s father Henry had worked for a printer’s warehouse and also as a bookbinder, and at least three of Samuel’s sons later worked in the printing industry. Jane Bavey was born in Bermondsey, London, but had moved to Cambridge as a child.

1911 census

Harold Charles Missen, 34, tobacconist & confectioner, b. Cambridge
Jessie Missen, 29, b. Cambridge
Jemima Burn, visitor, widow, 62, house keeper (private), b. Long Ditton Hill, Surrey

1921 census

Harold C Missen, head, 44, tobacconist, own account, 109 East Road, b. Cambridge
Jessie Missen, wife, 40, domestic duties, b. Cambridge
Sarah Clements, mother, 79, b. Andover, Hampshire

Harold Missen died in 1932, but Jessie is still listed in the electoral register for 8 Hooper Street until the early 1960s.

Sources

UK census records (1841 to 1921), General Register Office birth, marriage and death indexes (1837 onwards), the 1939 England and Wales Register, and electoral registers.

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