CFHS code : AL429
Parish : St Andrew the Less
Inscription : In Memory of GEORGE DODD d Nov 17 1865 aged 38
Monument : Headstone
Above information amended from Cambridge Family History Society Survey
Monument
Inscription
George Dodd (1827 – 17 November 1865)
George was born in Rickenhall, Suffolk and was baptised there on 15 April 1827. He was the son of John and Sarah Dodd and married Mary Holland (1824-1905) in Cambridge on 2 February 1847. George worked as a fish hawker/fishmonger and the couple lived just off Fitzroy Street (1851) and later at 65 Newmarket Road (at least 1855 onwards). Mary was also from Rickenhall, and the couple raised their nephew Walter Holland and niece Mary Driver.
In March 1855 George took Mary Ann Gibbons (known as The Castle End Giantess) to court, accusing her of having stolen 15s from him. The case was reported in the Cambridge Chronicle and Journal under the headline of ‘Charge of Robbery at a Brothel House’. Mary was said to be a very ‘tall, powerful woman’ and George had met her in Market Street, with two others. Mary had asked him to go back to her house in White Hart Yard, King Street, which he ‘consented to’. When he got to her house, he sent out for some beer, which was not available as it was so late and he subsequently fell asleep on Mary’s sofa for c.half an hour and woke up drunk. He was missing 15s in silver, which he accused Mary of having stolen, but she denied having done so. The court heard that George had been in Mary’s company ‘many times before this’ and that no money had been stolen on the other occassions. When Mary was arrested she offered the prosecutor 4s to settle the case, but at court the magistrates cautioned and discharged her as there was not deemed to be enough evidence to convict her.
In August 1858 fellow fishmonger George Jarman took George Dodd to court, as he had ‘threatened to knock his eyes out’. George Dodd was ordered to find sureties (ie lodge money with the court to guarentee his good behaviour going forward).
On Wednesday 21 September 1864 George went on a day trip to Harwich. It was an ‘excursion train’ and hundreds of people from Cambridge went to the seaside town for the day. The train returned through Bury St Edmunds, reaching there at 10pm. Whilst at the station, George opened the door and got out, thinking he would step onto the platform at Bury St Edmunds Station, but instead fell down an embankment ‘coming violently in contact with a brick wall at the bottom. He was picked up insensible. Medical assistance was promptly rendered, and it was considered undesirable to remove Dodd from Bury that night. He arrived in Cambridge on Thursday and although seriously hurt, the injuries are found not to be so extensive or so dangerous as they were at first believed to be’. George died at Newmarket Road and his funeral was held on 23 November 1865.
His widow Mary Dodd married widower George Jarman (1826-1910) on 3 May 1869 – the man her husband had threatened in 1858. Maybe it was her revenge for his public humiliation with The Castle End Giantess. They lived at 50 Fitzroy Street, and Mary is believed to have died in 1905.
Sources:
Ancestry
Newspaper archives
Parish burial records transcribed by CFHS
by Claire Martinsen
[If you have any information about this person, please contact us at Friendsofmillroadcemetery@gmail.com]