Author Topic: Cambridge Union Workhouse, Mill Street.  (Read 9253 times)

Offline Jill123

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Re: Cambridge Union Workhouse, Mill Street.
« Reply #9 on: Wednesday 28 December 11 08:24 GMT (UK) »
Keith and Selina - thank you both once again. Anderson and I appreciate your help! I look forward to hear if you're successful in your searches at the CCRO, Keith. Shame about the vandalism though.
              Best wishes,
                     Jill

Offline Keith Sherwood

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Re: Cambridge Union Workhouse, Mill Street.
« Reply #10 on: Wednesday 28 December 11 10:28 GMT (UK) »
Jill,
Like a lot of places, the CCRO is not open till Tuesday January 3rd, 2012.  Will get up there soon afterwards with my pencil and notebook, and hopefully find something to photocopy too...
keith

Offline Selina

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Re: Cambridge Union Workhouse, Mill Street.
« Reply #11 on: Wednesday 28 December 11 10:35 GMT (UK) »
Keith - I can't see a M.I. for him at Mill Road in the transcript of M.I's for City.

It would be nice if you can find out if he was definitely buried there.

Selina
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Offline Keith Sherwood

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Re: Cambridge Union Workhouse, Mill Street.
« Reply #12 on: Wednesday 28 December 11 13:18 GMT (UK) »
Selina,
I should be able to find a grave number and its exact location, but whether Anderson was given a headstone is another matter.  And I haven't had much luck recently looking for graves in the Mill Road Cemetery that are supposed to be there.  But we'll see!
regards, keith


Offline Keith Sherwood

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Re: Cambridge Union Workhouse, Mill Street.
« Reply #13 on: Tuesday 10 January 12 23:58 GMT (UK) »
Jill.
As promised, have been up to the CCRO today, and found a bundle of documents that I don't think had been re-opened since they were last looked at in 1861.  Some really rather interesting details, but I've only just come in and it's late, so I'll tell you all about it tomorrow - though I do have a U3A course to go to in the morning, and a funeral in the afternoon...
regards, keith

Offline Jill123

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Re: Cambridge Union Workhouse, Mill Street.
« Reply #14 on: Wednesday 11 January 12 09:33 GMT (UK) »
Keith, that's fine - you take whatever time you need before telling me the details........although that old bundle sounds REALLY intriguing! Here's hoping.......
     Many thanks.
        Jill

Offline Keith Sherwood

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Re: Cambridge Union Workhouse, Mill Street.
« Reply #15 on: Thursday 12 January 12 10:33 GMT (UK) »
Phew! Jill, yesterday was an unusually busy day for me, but let me try and make sense of my notes...
At first I got hold of a bundle of reports and letters from early 1861, and I thought I might possibly be able to photocopy, but there was so much of it, and some of the folds were quite fragile, so I read and made notes - the reference for the bundle is: G/C/AS 37A      by the way...
So, all the correspondence was between The Churchwardens Overseers of the Poor for the Parish of St Giles without Cripplegate and, I think, the Overseers of the Cambridge Union, in that they were trying to work out where Anderson MARSH should be settled, or which Parish was responsible for him in Cambridge when he was moved from London.
He is already being referred to as incapable and as a "lunatic", and the problem was which Cambridge parish, Holy Trinity or St Mary's The Great was responsible financially for him.  It all hinged on his father James MARSH, a cabinet maker, who when apprenticed to a Thomas CHANDLER on 20th November 1802 (Thomas living at The White Swan, Petty Cury) did not stay/live with his master in that parish, i.e. St Mary's the Great, for the obligatory 40 days during his apprenticeship, but lived in King Street with his father and widowed mother - I've just re-read this, and of course this doesn't make any sense, I must have missed some vital punctuation, or misread something.  However, the whole point is that they weren't sure which parish Anderson should be settled in!
As the churches are within spitting distance of one another near the market place, and that the workhouse had become a union of at least these two parishes, people seemed to be spitting feathers in this correspondence over not a great deal.  Now, looking in the Minutes of the Cambridge Union, there are almost weekly references to this dispute...more anon...
keith

Offline Keith Sherwood

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Re: Cambridge Union Workhouse, Mill Street.
« Reply #16 on: Thursday 12 January 12 10:57 GMT (UK) »
...continuing...
From the Minutes Book of the Cambridge Union Workhouse:
8th February 1861: "Clerk presented order of Removal from the Parish of St Giles Cripplegate to St Mary The Great"
13th Feb: "Clerk reported that this pauper not settled in St Mary The Great..."
20th Feb: "Clerk presented grounds of appeal..."
27 Feb:  another comment about procedure
13th March: "St Giles Cripplegate had heard that the Almshouse in which pauper's father lived whilst serving his apprenticeship was situate in the Parish of Holy Trinity, and proposing to abandon order without costs."
Further entries for 20th March and 17th April continue the saga/melodrama until on 24th April there is a direction for removal from St Giles Cripplegate.
One can only imagine how Anderson MARSH was brought from London the 60 miles or so to Cambridge.  The final entry, on 29th May 1861, before he completely vanishes from view (and I did look also in the Minutes Book for 1871, but no reference to him at all, sadly):
"Ordered that the cheque  for 13s/6d be issued in payment of the account for relief to this pauper under removal order.  Cheque to John Lee Esq.
For each of the entries referring to Anderson MARSH his name appeared in the left-hand margin.
And I did notice in the Holy Trinity burials: James MARSH aged 81 of King Street, buried 3rd Feb 1871; and Ann MARSH aged 72 of King Street, buried 8th September 1863.
But as you say, it looks as though the death of his father James might have precipitated Anderson MARSH's desperate actions in May that year.
Looked in the 1861 Census for Cambridge, and James and Ann are indeed there at 67, King Street, but I was as unsuccessful as you at spotting their son Anderson in London - I have come across institutionalised individuals being represented only by their initials, though, so perhaps some kind of search for that might half-reveal him.
Sorry if it's been a bit gobbledegook at times - I'm not a very efficient note taker!
Regards, keith
p.s. Forgot to mention that I looked in the Mill Road Cemetery book, and there is no record for an Anderson MARSH interral, under St Bene't's, or any other parish burial plot...

Offline Jill123

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Re: Cambridge Union Workhouse, Mill Street.
« Reply #17 on: Thursday 12 January 12 11:52 GMT (UK) »
Keith, thankyou so much for all your hard work. This is all absolutely fascinating - and not just about Anderson. You see, I have also been stuck at a brick wall for many years as to the origins of his father, James Marsh, so your new info will hopefully provide a breakthrough with him too. I have a tenuous note that James' mother's name was 'Mary' - I don't suppose you made a note of his parents' names, did you? And have you any idea where Petty Cury is? As that might help in finding a clue to the birth place of James.  I have been in contact with the main Marsh groups who's Marsh ancestors lived in the surrounding villages (I even had my mtDNA taken!) but my Marshes aren't kin to them, unless very far back. The birth place of James and his parents might help in this (and no, I'm not asking you to do further searches!)
   And poor Anderson - probably already a lunatic when he was discharged from the army in 1857. I shall have a snoop around the London records online to see if I can find him before he was transferred to Cambridge. Shame we didn't find his burial place..........yet! I'm ever hopeful!
     Once again, thank you so much for all your help - it is VERY much appreciated.
         Best wishes,
          Jill