CFHS code : AG39
Parish : St Andrew the Great
Inscription : In Memory of GEORGE WILLIAM FITCH b Mar 20 1830 d Oct 7 1899
Monument : Cruciform Coped stone
Above information from Cambridge Family History Society Survey
Lat Lon : 52.202667, 0.13719603 – click here for location
Monument
Located south east of the centre circle.
Inscription
In Memory of GEORGE WILLIAM FITCH b Mar 20 1830 d Oct 7 1899
George William Fitch (March 20 1830 – October 7 1899)
George was the son of Adam and Theodora Fitch. His father was a butler at Caius College, Cambridge, and died when George was 10 years old in 1840. After 1840 he lived with his mother until she died in 1865. They lived firstly at 53 Sidney Street, where he was noted as a solicitor’s clerk in 1851 and later at 14 Sidney Street, where he had a solicitor’s practise.
In the census of 1861 he was an attorney and solicitor. Around 1870 he moved to 72 Regent Street, where he practiced as a solicitor until his death in 1899. He did not marry. In Kelly’s Directories he was also noted to be a Clerk of the Peace for the borough (1879 onwards) . He was a member of the Town Council for Trinity and later St. Andrew’s Ward, and was a member of the Free Library Committee serving two terms as chairman. He was also treasurer to the Cambridge Horticulture Society, Governor of the Perse Grammar School, trustee of Hobson’s Trust and trustee of the Victoria and Albert Asylums (Almshouses)
He died in October 1899 aged 69, having ‘not been in the best of health for some time’ (indeed colleagues had been expecting his death for the previous six months). George said he felt unwell two days before his death, and took to his bed the following day. His housekeeper Miss Nottidge left him just before midnight and retired to her room. She then heard him calling and ran back to his bedroom ‘and was shocked to find Mr Fitch clinging to the door, bent almost double with pain. He said ‘I feel so ill, I believe I am going to die’. Miss Nottidge took hold of him, but the death throes were already upon him, and he slipped from her arms to the floor. Within ten minutes of the seizure he was dead’.
His funeral was held on 10 March at St. Andrew the Great Church. The cortege left Regent Street at two o’clock and consisted of six carriages. ‘At the church a large congregation assembled….public men of all opinions were represented in such numbers that no better testimony to the regard in which the deceased was held could have been afforded…there were marked evidences of the regret experienced at the termination of so useful a life’. Representatives from the following attended the funeral: Conservative club, the Conservative club Bijou amateurs [of which George was one of the oldest members], the Cambridge Volunteer Fire Brigade, Anglesey Abbey, Cambridge County Council and Cambridge Board of Guardians.
There were many obituarys printed in local newspapers. The Cambridge Chronicle and Journal noted ‘few public officials were held in higher esteem….and many charitable and other societies will miss his kindly and generous support. …In society he was a genial companion, full of humour and anecdote, and above all he was a consistent Churchman. No one had fewer enemies than Mr. George Fitch in Cambridge, and his death will be generally regretted by all with whom he came in contact’. The Cambridge Daily News said ‘by his genial bearing the late Mr. Fitch endeared himself to all with whom he came in contact. In social life he was the most delightful of men, and his social qualities – his gifts in telling a good story, in singing a good song – made his company eagerly sought after. It is with a pang of sorrow that all who have had the pleasure of knowing him will learn that this genial, loveable man is dead’.
Source:
Ancestry
By Claire Martinsen