Cambridge Coincidences.

By Hugo Brown

 

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Mention the city of Cambridge and most people will think of Christmas Carols at King’s College and the annual Cambridge University vs. Oxford University boat race. However not everyone in Cambridge is a 6 foot plus student oarsman or a boy choir singer.

 

Records for the University Alumni are excellent, however for the non-University people the normal channels of research are required. The majority of my wife’s (Melanie) ancestors came from Cambridge and the closest they came to the University was James Smee, who from 1913 to his death in 1933 worked as a college servant. All the rest were ordinary town folk with trades from shoemaker to bricklayer. But ordinary folk have a history as well.

 

Over the past seven years I have amassed a large quantity of data concerning Melanie’s Cambridge ancestors. The Cambridge Records Office and The Cambridgeshire Collection are readily at hand, as we live only 20 miles north of Cambridge.

 

The Coincidence of 39 Gwydir Street

A little while ago I was reviewing my 1881 Census Returns, with the advent of the 1881 Census CD-ROMs, when I chanced to look at the address of one particular family of Melanie’s ancestors in Cambridge. This was how it read:

 

Extract of 1881 Census Return - RG11-1666 Folio 6 Page 5

39 Gwydir Street (Shoe Shop), Cambridge (St Andrew the Less District)

William Smee               Head                43        Bootmaker       Born Toppesfield, Essex

Sarah A Smee              Wife                 42        -                       Born Cambridge

Herbert Smee               Son                  21        Bootmaker       Born Cambridge

Edmund Smee              Son                  19        Bootmaker       Born Cambridge

James Smee                 Son                  18        Baker               Born Cambridge

William Smee               Son                  16        Errand Boy       Born Cambridge

George Smee               Son                  14        Baker’s Boy     Born Cambridge

Arthur Smee                 Son                  12        Scholar             Born Cambridge

Isaac Smee                   Son                  10        Scholar             Born Cambridge

Henry Smee                 Son                    8        Scholar             Born Cambridge

Albert Smee                 Son                    6        Scholar             Born Cambridge

Sarah Smee                  Daughter            4        Scholar             Born Cambridge

Ellen Smee                   Daughter            3        Scholar             Born Cambridge

Ernest Smee                 Son                    2        -                       Born Cambridge

Elizabeth Smee             Daughter          11m     -                       Born Cambridge

 

James Smee was Melanie’s 2x great-grandfather and William & Sarah Ann Smee were her 3x great-grandparents. In all, there were 15 people living at 39 Gwydir Street, in what I knew to be a small two up, two down terraced abode. I hadn’t noticed the importance of the address, but I knew I had come across it before and then it dawned on me.

“Melanie”, I questioned my wife, “where were you born?”

“At the Mill Road Maternity Hospital”, came her reply.

“And where did you live immediately afterwards?” I asked.

“Gwydir Street, number 39” Melanie replied, wondering why I was asking questions to which she knew I already knew the answers.

Gwydir Street 1997 (the white house is No. 39)      

 

Melanie was born in 1964, but unknown to her and all her living family, some 83 years earlier, her 2x & 3x great-grandparents lived in that very same house. Melanie’s family moved out of Gwydir Street in 1969 following the birth of her two sisters Lorraine & Tracy, as it had become too small for the five of them.

 

Even in the 1960’s, Melanie can recall the visits to the little building at the bottom of the garden and hot tin baths in front of an open fire, but the mind boggles at the thought of 15 people living in that same house having to share the same basic amenities, but without electricity and running hot water.

 

I wanted to discover more about the Smee’s and how they ended up at 39 Gwydir Street some 120 years ago and what happened to them afterwards.

 

From the Census Returns I discovered that in 1841 & 1851 William Smee aged 3 & 13 respectively was living with his parents Isaac & Catherine Smee in Toppesfield in Essex. The first record of William Smee in Cambridge appeared when he married Sarah Ann Black in 1858. His abode was given as 34 City Road. The 1861 Census placed him & his family at 28 Gold Street. They were still at 28 Gold Street when James Smee was born on 4th January 1863.

 

I visited the Cambridgeshire Collection and discovered they had a huge library of photographs and many useful documents and books covering the town of Cambridge. Firstly I obtained a photograph of Gwydir Street and then I set about tracing the Smee’s. The most useful books I found were the W.P.Spalding street directories for Cambridge. These started in 1874 and were published every 3-4 years until the Great War, after which they became an annual publication. Finally they ceased publication altogether at the start of the Second World War.

Gwydir Street around 1910 (the car is parked outside No. 39)

(Courtesy of The Cambridgeshire Collection)                    

 

From the 1871 Census, I found that William Smee lived at 1 Custom Street. So this was the obvious place to start with in the 1874 Spalding Directory, but Custom Street wasn’t there and to date I have yet to find it listed anywhere in Cambridge. However this wasn’t unusual, as at the time streets often changed their name dependent on who owned the majority of the street. A thorough search of the directory eventually located him at 27 Staffordshire Street. The 1881 Spalding Directory found them at 39 Gwydir Street confirming the Census Return recorded above. In the 1884 Spalding Directory, he and his family had moved to 6 Vicarage Terrace. To my knowledge he didn’t appear in any more Spalding Directories after this date, although the 1891 Census placed him at 65 Ainsworth Street and as head of the household. He didn’t die until 1907 aged 68, when he resided at 15 Flower Street, the home of Herbert Smee his eldest son. Sarah Ann Smee, William’s wife, predeceased him and died on 29th September 1902 at 24 St Matthew’s Street, also the residence of Herbert Smee. I can only conclude that William must have spent the remainder of his life living with Herbert in Cambridge.

 

The Coincidence of 28 Gold Street

James Smee married Clara Turner on 28th December 1884 and both gave their abode as 6 Vicarage Terrace, which was confirmed by the entry in the 1884 Spalding Directory as the home of William Smee. Clara Turner’s parents lived coincidentally at 28 Gold Street from 1881 to at least 1887, which was where James Smee had been born  in 1863. I suspect that this may have led to their meeting. I can just imagine Clara saying “I live at 28 Gold Street” and James replying “Cor! What a coincidence, I was born in that house” and so the ice was broken!

Gold Street around 1910 (Courtesy of The Cambridgeshire Collection)               

James made his first appearance in the Spalding Directories in 1887 at 9 Adam & Eve Street. On the 26th May 1887 James & Clara gave birth to their daughter (and Melanie’s great grandmother) Nellie May Smee. The address given on the birth certificate was 9 Adam & Eve Row. The Spalding 1891 Directory found James at 4 Smarts Row, off Staffordshire Street (confirmed by the 1891 Census), 1898 he was located at 3 Leaders Row (also just off Staffordshire Street) and in 1901 he had moved to 31 Staffordshire Street, but here the scent went cold. No sign of him could be found in the 1904 Spalding Directory. I had managed to purchase my own copy of the 1904 Spalding Directory, so I resorted to fully indexing all the entries within this directory in an effort to locate James Smee, only to discover that he was not listed at all. I can only assume that, like his father, he was living with relatives.

 

James didn’t appear again until 1913 when he was living at 45 Adam & Eve Street. He appeared at the same address in every Spalding Directory thereafter until 1932. He died aged 70 in 1933 and his death certificate confirmed the address as 45 Adam & Eve Street. After James’s death Clara Smee’s continued to be listed but each time at 44 Adam & Eve Street. The Spalding Directories ended with the 1939/40 edition, but after the Second World War, Kelly’s produced a Cambridge & District Directory and Clara Smee was again listed in the 1948 edition at 44 Adam & Eve Street, although she died on 13th June 1948. Was this the same house as number 45 or did she move next door? What happened to James in the years between 1901 & 1913, as yet I don’t know.

(1904 (W.P.Spalding) Map of Cambridge, showing the places of abode of William & James Smee.)

 

From the above information I was able to map James’s & William’s places of abode in Cambridge. Although they may not have moved in the University circles, they did certainly move about within Cambridge. To my knowledge, between them they lived at no fewer than 14 different addresses in Cambridge in a period just short of 100 years and all within a quarter of a mile radius. A few of their descendants still live in the same area, but unfortunately many of these streets no longer exist, due to modernisation in the case of the Staffordshire Street area and the Grafton Shopping Centre in the case of Gold Street. Moving house in modern times has become a very complex and arduous task, however in the late 1800’s I suspect that the Smee’s just packed up a small bag of clothes, eating utensils and a few small personal possessions and moved to their next rented accommodation. It probably took just a couple of hours.

 

(I enjoyed creating the index to the 1904 Cambridge Directory by W P Spalding to such an extent, that I have placed it on a CD-ROM, together with maps of Cambridge for 1904, 1924 & 1949 and in collaboration with the Cambridgeshire Collection I have added 1,000 photographs of Cambridge dating back to 1870. The CD-ROM is called “The Cambridge Explorer” details of which can be found at a dedicated website www.cambridge-explorer.co.uk and is now available via the CFHS Bookstall.)

 

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© Hugo Brown (2002)