CFHS code : AL586a
Parish : St Andrew the Less
Inscription : In Loving Memory of FULCHER BRANCH d April 30 1897 also of ELIZABETH SELINA BRANCH wife of the above d Sep 30 1908 aged 79
Monument : Headstone (fallen and broken)
Above information from Cambridge Family History Society Survey
Monument
Inscription
Henry Fulcher Branch (1824 – 30 April 1897)
Henry was born in Bressingham in Norfolk. He was known as Fulcher through his life, although his official documentation records him most of the time as Henry Fulcher Branch. He married Elizabeth Gray in 1855 when he was c.31 years old.
Elizabeth and Fulcher had at least two children: Henry William (1856-1929) and Edward George (1868-1947). Fulcher worked as a whitesmith (1861) and then as a blacksmith (1871 onwards0. The family moved regularly and lived across the city: 6 Albert Street (18610, 31 Corn Exchange Street (1871), 58 East Road (1881), 153 Newmarket Road (1891) and then 24 Abbey Street.
Fulcher died at 24 Abbey Street aged 73 years old.
Elizabeth Selina Branch (nee Gray) (1829-30 September 1908)
Elizabeth was the daughter of shopkeeper James Gray and his wife Elizabeth. She appears to have been blind from birth, and her blindness is recorded on the census returns. She was born in Needingworth, near Huntingdon, but was living in Cambridge by the age of 12 (1841). Just before marrying Fulcher she was living on Newmarket Road, where her widowed mother was running a greengrocers.
Elizabeth was 68 years old when her husband Fulcher died. She was living at 24 Staffordshire Street in 1901 with Nellie Barton, a domestic servant. She died in 1908 aged 79 years old.
Elizabeth and Fulcher’s son Edward George lived in India for most of his life, he was a foreman on the construction of the Indian railway.
Sources:
Ancestry
Newspaper archives
by Claire Martinsen
[If you have any further information about this family, please contact us at Friendsofmillroadcemetery@gmail.com]