CFHS code : HT444
Parish : Holy Trinity
Inscription : In Loving Memory of BERTHA ETHEL BOWTELL d Aug 24th 1927 aged 45 also of STEPHEN BOWTELL d Jan 27th 1943 aged 61
Monument : Headstone/Kerb stones
Above information from Cambridge Family History Society Survey
Monument
Inscription
Bertha Ethel Bowtell (née Simmonds) (1882 – 24 August 1927)
Bertha was the daughter of Arthur and Maria (née Wiggett) and grew up at York Street and Great Eastern Street. Her father worked as a railway guard and aged 18 Bertha was working as a general servant to butcher William Coulson living at 190 East Road. She married Stephen Bowtell in 1906 and they lived at 32 Hope Street (1911) and then 14 Romsey Terrace (at least 1921 onwards). Stephen worked as a railway fireman (1911) and then as a joiner for L.N.E.R (1939) and they had at least two daughters; Florence Ethel (1908-1973) and Lilian Jessie (1917-1986). Bertha died aged 45 years old, after being found by daughter Florence with her head in the gas oven. Stephen told the inquests that his wife ‘had been in ill health for 18 years and indeed, had never been a robust person’, but that she had never threathened to take her own life. The inquest also heard that she had been ‘suffering from some internal trouble’ for the past six weeks. The Coroner returned a verdict of ‘suicide by coal gas poisoning during temporary insanity’.
Stephen James Bowtell (14 September 1881 – 27 January 1943)
Stephen was the son of Charles and Susannah (née Gates) and was born in Ickleton. in 1939 he was still living at Romsey Terrace with eldest daughter Florence and died at home aged 61 years old.
Source:
Ancestry
Newspaper archives
by Claire Martinsen
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