65 Ainsworth Street

Search by topic

Number 65 is one of three terraced houses on the west side of Ainsworth Street.

It was uninhabited at the time of the 1881 census.

1891 census

William Smee, head, 54, shoemaker, b. Toppesfield, Essex
Sarah Ann Smee, wife, 53, b. Cambridge
William Smee, son, 23, servant, b. Cambridge
Henry Smee, son, 21, servant, b. Cambridge
Albert Smee, son, 17, grocer’s assistant, b. Cambridge
Ellen Smee, daughter, 14, b. Cambridge
Ernest Smee, son, 12, scholar, b. Cambridge
Elizabeth Smee, daughter, 11, scholar, b. Cambridge
John Smee, son, 7, scholar, b. Cambridge

The Smee family previously lived at 39 Gwydir Street, where William had a shoe shop. The Electoral Register shows that they had moved to 65 Ainsworth Street by 1888.

The census records from 1881, 1891 and 1901 indicate that they had at least 16 children, including Rachael, Edmund and Arthur, who were not living at no. 65 in 1891 but had returned home by 1901. In 1891 Rachael was working in Lambeth as domestic cook, and Arthur was working as a shoemaker in Northampton.

In December 1895 William Smee (junior) died of consumption. His father told the inquest, held at the Claremont Arms on Ainsworth Street, that his son had been in and out of hospital for some time. About one o’clock on Saturday he went out into the garden, his son ‘held out his hand with a few coppers in it and fell down instantly. He had not been out of the Hospital a fortnight.’

1901 census

William Smee, head, 60, bootmaker, b. Toppesfield, Essex
Sarah A Smee, wife, 58, b. Cambridge
Edmund Smee, son, 38, bootmaker, b. Cambridge
Henry Smee, son, 36, college servant, b. Cambridge
Rachael E Smee, daughter, 40, domestic servant, b. Cambridge
Arthur Smee, son, 32, bootmaker, b. Cambridge

By 1901, Albert, Ellen, Ernest and Elizabeth had left the family home.

Albert (who was baptised ‘Mac Albert’) married Maude Childerhouse in 1901. They lived at 118 Gwydir Street and Albert became a cellarman for the Great Eastern Railway’s Refreshment Department. By 1920 he was licensee of the Kingston Arms. He died in 1936.

Ellen and her older sister Sarah were living at the Rectory in Landbeach in 1901, working as a housemaid (Ellen) and a cook (Sarah). Ellen married William Norman in 1904.

Ernest Smee, boot repairer, was tried on 11 April 1904 of stealing from the till of Alfred Goodes, boot maker of Panton Street. He was sentenced to one week of hard labour. The trial was reported in the Cambridge Independent Press under the tagline ‘Suffering from Religious Mania’. Detective-Sergeant Marsh states that the prisoner ‘seemed a bit funny at times’ and that there was insanity in the family. This much we can verify, because in August 1901 Ernest’s sister Rachael was admitted to the Lunatic Asylum, where she remained until her death in February 1933.

On 15 April 1904, Ernest himself was admitted to the Lunatic Asylum, where he remained until his death in September 1930.

Elizabeth Smee was a domestic servant to a draper in St Ives in 1901. She married Henry Thorogood in 1910.

Henry Smee married Florence Turner in 1902. By 1913 Arthur Smee was a van man for a fruit and vegetable seller and lived in Adam and Eve Row.

Sarah Ann Smee died in 1902, and William Smee (senior) died in 1907.

1911 census

James Brown, head, 40, oilman’s driver, b. Chesterton
Emma Brown, wife, 40, b. Waterbeach
Malcolm Brown, son,16, apprentice to house furnisher, b. Chesterton
Olive Brown, daughter, 15, apprentice dressmaker, b. Chesterton
Gladys Ashman, niece, 4, b. Chesterton

James and Emma Brown had been marrried for 17 years. They had had four children, two of whom had died.

1921 census

James Brown, head, 52, warehouseman, general stores, b. Chesterton, Cambridge
Emma Brown, wife, 51, home duties, b. Landbeach, Cambridgeshire
Gladys Ashman, niece, orphan, 14, tailor’s apprentice, b. Chesterton, Cambridge

James Brown worked for Charles Brown, oil merchant, of 64 Gwydir Street. Gladys Ashman was apprenticed to Mr Thompson, tailor, of Blinco Grove.

Sources

UK census records (1881 – 1939), Essex Church of England Parish Registers, England & Wales, Civil Registration Death Index (1837-1915), England & Wales Marriages (1837-2005), Cambridge Independent Press 27 December 1895, Cambridge Daily News 16 December 1920, UK, Lunacy Patients Admission Registers, 1846-1912, England & Wales, Crime, Prisons & Punishment, 1770-1935, Cambridge Independent Press 15 April 1904

Contribute

Do you have any information about the people or places in this article? If so, then please let us know using the Contact page or by emailing capturingcambridge@museumofcambridge.org.uk.

License

This work is licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 4.0

Search by topic