A now completely vanished Great Marlow address. The Place was formed of just 4 houses off Cambridge Road Marlow (next to where Eton Place is today). It was accessible on foot from both Cambridge Road and Queen's Road.
Edwardian Residents (using the popular definition of the era as stretching from 1901 to 1914)
No 1: By 1907 the Adams family headed by Jemima and John Adams neither of whom originated in Marlow- he was from Middlesex and she from Sussex. They arrived in Marlow in 1892 (in 1891 they were in Taplow). At first the family did not live in Cambridge Place but in West Street. John was a domestic coachman, whilst also being the official licensee of the Saddlers Arms pub. As was common at the time a husband would take legal responsibility for a pub business but his wife actually ran the pub on a day to day basis while he followed another trade. A word of warning- There was another Marlow man with the name John Adams, a confectioner, fancy bazaar keeper and toy seller in West Street. If you are interested in this other John Adams and have come to this post by mistake don't worry- there is a full biography of John the shopkeeper on our blog here. The John of our post today gave up the Saddlers in 1903 and by 1907 his family were living in Cambridge Place. John died just after the Edwardian era in 1918, Jemima in 1941. She had moved to Flowerdene Oak Tree Road Marlow (after 1921 but before 1939) to live with her married daughter Edith and Edith's carpenter husband Edward Heatley. There were various other children born to Jemima and John. Elizabeth (a domestic cook), like Edith lived at home in Cambridge Place or at least part of the Edwardian era. Daughter Annie had come third in the girls' running races held at Remnantz West Street as part of 1897 Jubilee celebrations. Son Charles may have worked as a waiter at the Compleat Angler hotel in the late 1890s.
No 2: Stroud family from 1902 headed by Annie and George. Later, towards the end of the era W Mitchell. George Stroud was a bricklayer. He was formerly the landlord of the Traveller's Rest pub in Dean Street (though Annie was the one behind the bar most of the time because George was working as a bricklayer. Annie took in lodgers too). The couple had had a tough time on those premises. You can read more about that here.
George while working as a bricklayer at a house in Chapel Street for Mr Wellicome in 1908 overheard the juiciest piece of gossip in the town at the time - that the wife of his work colleague John Harvey had been seen walking arm entwined with another man. This piece of gossip was being relentlessly spread by the landlord of the Chair Makers Arms in Dean Street and led to him being sued for slander by Mrs Harvey. George was one of the witnesses in the resulting 1909 court case, as was his cousin Robert Stroud another bricklayer. More on the case here.
No 3: A property with a lot of turnover= John and Harriet Janes in 1907 (gone by 1911), then Florence and Litton Smith, then at the very end of the era Emily Mead and her children.
The Janes family had previously lived in Chapel Street Marlow. John was the caretaker of the Literary Institute (now the Library) in Institute Road. He played for the Institute cricket team and for Marlow Football Club (having been poached from their big rival Maidenhead in 1896!), was an occasional rower for the Rowing Club and acted as the the escape foreman of the Marlow Fire Brigade. A busy man! The couple seem to have left Marlow about 1909 / 1910?
Litton Smith was a bricklayer who had moved from the village of Bisham across the Thames. He and Florence were a young couple with a baby daughter Flora. After his time in Cambridge Place Litton worked at the town gasworks in Cambridge Road.
Emily Mead was a young widow who worked as one of the chamber maids of the Crown Hotel. She had previously lived with her husband Arthur and various children in nearby York Road (where Emily gets a passing mention as a witness in a court case when one neighbour was said to have poisoned another's pet cat!) and then as a widow in Potlands / Portlands off West Street. Her daughter Grace in 1909 won a prize for her cooking as a Bucks Educational Committee cookery class pupil. She looked after the family while her mother was at work in the hotel. Arthur Mead had managed the grocery shop of Mathew Clifton in Marlow High Street and probably also for James Gray who took over that business in 1901. In 1904 Arthur became fatally ill despite efforts to treat him at St Thomas's Hospital in London. Collections were made locally for the support of his wife and children as they had been left without any income since the start of his illness.
No 4: Elizabeth and William Stacey, a couple who had had 19 children! Moved to this address by 1907 having previously been at Dukes Place, Oxford Road and Eton Place. William was at this point blind and unable to work any more as a bricklayer. Elizabeth was one of Marlow's midwives and thus would have touched the lives of many Marlow households. She would not have been medically qualified but with nineteen births behind her she was certainly experienced! Elizabeth and William's adult children Herbert, Harry and Ada all lived at home at some point during the Edwardian era. To read about a case when much earlier in his life William had been in trouble for fighting in nearby Eton Place see this post.
More posts on specific Marlow streets in various eras from the 1700s onwards are indexed here.
See the A-Z Person Index for all mentions of any individual on this blog. Thousands of people are mentioned.
Researched and written by Charlotte Day.
Some sources:
Marlow Directory and Almanack by Marlow Printing Company 1907 and 1915 editions.
England and Wales census Great Marlow / Marlow Urban National Archives, 1891-1911.
"England and Wales, Death Registration Index 1837-2007", , FamilySearch (https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:QVCH-SFWC : 2 November 2021), Jemima A Adams, 1941.
Graves of John and Jemima Adams Marlow Cemetery.
1897 Jubilee celebration notes, privately held.
"England and Wales, Marriage Registration Index, 1837-2005," database, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:QVZG-S68N : 8 October 2014), Edith Adams and null, 1923; from "England & Wales Marriages, 1837-2005," database, findmypast (http://www.findmypast.com : 2012); citing 1923, quarter 2, vol. 3A, p. 1920, Wycombe, Buckinghamshire, England, General Register Office, Southport, England.
Kelly's Directory of Buckinghamshire etc 1939.
South Bucks Standard Jan 22nd 1909 and 29th January 1904. The first from the British Library Archives and accessed via the BNA.
