Parish code HT356r This monument was not found during the CHFHS survey.
Parish Holy Trinity
Monument
Kerb Stones
Monument
This set of grey marble kerbstones with corner posts are located about 20 metres north of the south path and roughly 70 metres along the south path from the central path. It is hidden in vegetation and not easily found. The kerbs and corner posts are intact. The first inscription for Joseph is carved and not easy to see. That for Ada is easier to read and Mary’s was added in metal letters on the top edge of the north kerb.
inscription
In Memory of a devoted and loving husband
Joseph Beaumont Bryant who died … remainder illegible
Only goodnight beloved not farewell
Above that of her husband on the north kerb
Also MARY ELIZABETH BRYANT his beloved wife, who died June 6th 1941 aged 83 years
Also our daughter ADA born Feb. 11. 1891 died March 10 1927 Loved By All
Joseph Beaumont Bryant (1850- 7 May 1921)
Joseph was born in Norfolk the son of Thomas Reynolds Bryant (1824-1876) and Sarah Anne (née Catermole) and was baptised in Ipswich on 1 December 1850. His mother died soon after his birth, as by April 1851 his father was a widower with two small children. Thomas was a homeopathic Chemist. By 1869 the family had moved to Cambridge and were living at 7 Eastbourne Terrace, Hills Road. Thomas had a practice in Market Street and on the 1871 census 19 year old Joseph was listed as a medical assistant. By 1891 he, Mary and their baby daughter Ada were living at 2 Earl St and Joseph was calling himself a Homeopathic Chemist. He traded under the name J. B. Bryant.
Adverts placed in the Cambridge Daily News show that by 1890 he had a chiropody practice at 78 Regent St [opposite Downing College] where he also sold cameras. The Cambridge News ran a shopping feature in December 1899 and noted that Mr Bryant ‘chemist and druggist makes a speciality of perfumes as his windows at the present time amply testify, No one need be embarrassed in deciding what to give the lads if he will only interview Mr Bryant, in whost window may be seen an interesting collection of model engines and locomotives and what better could be given as a present to the boy of an enquiring mind’.
In c.1900 he moved his shop to the opposite side of Regent Street – 18b. On the 1911 census he listed himself as a chemist and ‘chiropodist dealer’. The family were now living at 33 St Phillips Road in Romsey Town. In a report on the workhouse Christmas party he is mentioned as having given a couple of recitations. In November 1918 Joseph advertised in the Cambridge Daily News as he had lost a ‘red leather case, containing surgical intruments’ between Tenison Roa, Glisson Road and Regent Street. He offered a reward for its safe return.
They later moved to 46 Tenison Rd where Joseph died aged 71. Obituaries said he ‘was a well known chiropodist for 45 years, having a very large connection all over the country’. His funeral was held at Mill Road Cemetery Chapel on 10 May and representatives of the Cambridge and District Pharmaceutical Society were amongst the mourners.
Mary Elizabeth Bryant (née Shreeve) (1 May 1858 – 6 June 1941)
Mary was born in Kimbolton, Huntingdonshire and baptised there on 22 August 1858. She was the daughter of William Sayer Shreeve (1829-1881) and Caroline (née Ogden) (1833-1903). William was a commercial traveller and by 1871 the family were living in Stapleford with his parents. William worked for Messrs Stafford, Sons and Oswin of Leicester, and died suddenly at the Stamford Hotel whilst on business. He had arrived at the hotel by train, and after a light supper seemed in the very best of health. The landlord and hotel guests were woken by his cries in the middle of the night and he died soon after of what was believed to be natural causes. After her fathers death, Mary’s youngest brother William was sent to the Commercial Travellers’ School in Pinner, which was for the ‘orphans and necissitous children of commercial travellers’. Mary’s two brothers and sister Kate all emigrated to the USA.
Mary married chemist Joseph Beaumont Bryant on March 21 1889 at St Andrews Church Stapleford. In June 1930 and again in the Summer of 1936 she travelled to Boston, Massachusetts to visit family, and from the travelling documentation it is known she was 5ft 3″ tall with grey eyes, and grey hair. In 1939 she was living at 46 Tenison Road with her brother William, who had returned home from the USA in c.1937, and sister in law Evelyn. She died at the Devonshire Nursing Home, 97 Tenison Road aged 83.
William and Evelyn Shreeve continued to live at 46 Tenison Road until his death in March 1955. Evelyn then returned to the USA to live with her daughter Kathleen.
Ada Ellen Bryant (11 February 1891- 1927)
Ada was baptised on March 30th 1891 at in Stapleford. She attended the Eden Street Higher Grade school, where she was seemingly a model student winning numerous prizes. She won three prizes the childrens classes at the United Horticultural Society’s Splendid Show,held at the Corn Exchange in September 1903 – 1st in the ‘fancy fern or flower basket made of fir cones, bark, cork, willow or wire’, 1st in the ‘puff pastry, such as small jam tarts, cheese cakes etc, no large fruit pies’ and 2nd in the ‘fancy cakes, buns, sponge cakes, swiss roll etc’. She later trained to become a teacher at Homerton College (1909-1911) where she was elected Prefect by the students of her year. After teaching in Norwich and Cottenham, where she was part of the Voluntary Aid Detachment (V.A.D), she returned to Cambridge to teach at the newly opened Central School, Melbourne Place..
She died at 4 Dorset Square, Marylebone London NW36 after an operation when she was only 36. An obituary and funeral report appeared in local papers which ran as a whole column listing the many people who attended her funeral at Mill Road Cemetery Chapel. Local newspapers reported ‘the little chapel at Mill Road Cemetery where the first part of the service was held, was filled to overflowing with past and present scholars of the shool, old schoolmates, teaching colleagues and friends. Many were unable to gain admission, but gathered round the open door during the service and followed the coffin to the graveside in the cemetery’. Her obituary noted ‘she will be greatly missed…for she was most devoted to her work, which always seemed a joy to her, and she was beloved by the children and respected and admired by her colleagues on account of her cheerful loyalty and helpfulness’. Mary Bryant left a wreath at the graveside with the message ‘to my darling girl from her heartbroken mother’.
Sources:
Parish burial records transcribed by CHFHS
British Newspaper Archives
Find My Past
Free BMD