CFHS code : ED30
Parish : St Edward
Inscription : -MO/CRABB GILLETT
Monument : Headstone (broken)
Above information from Cambridge Family History Society Survey
Lat Lon : 52.203121, 0.13743735 – click here for location
Monument
This pointed headstone, with carving of oak leaves, the headstone broken into fragments and fallen, in the parish area of St Edward, is located west of the central path as it travels north from the centre circle, five rows back from the path, next to the grave of Mary Ann Parson and close to that of Henry James Parson and family .
Inscription
Crabb Gillett [remainder indecipherable]
Crabb Gillett (1829‒1894)
Crabb (or Crabbe) Gillett was the son of Christopher Gillett, farmer, and his wife Ann, of Littleport ‒ a village in the Fenland district of East Cambridgeshire, 6 miles north of Ely and 20 miles northeast of Cambridge. Crabb was baptised on 16 February 1829. By the time he was 12, in 1841, the family was living in the parish of St Mary, Ely, and Crabb had three elder sisters, Elizabeth (c.1820‒), Mary Ann (c.1825‒92) and Matilda (c.1825‒). Since there is no mention of Christopher in the 1841 census report, it is possible that Ann, aged 45, was by then a widow.
By 1851, Crabb was living with the family of Henry Thomas Pate, chemist and druggist, on the High Street, Ely, for whom he worked as a “chemist’s assistant”. By four years later, 1855, Crabb had acquired his own chemist shop at 5 Peas Hill, close to the market place in the centre of Cambridge, where he lived, unmarried, with his housekeeper Elizabeth Cannon. He maintained the Peas Hill pharmacy for at least 25 years. By 1891 he was retired and living at 42 Tenison Road (Petersfield), Cambridge, still unmarried and with a housekeeper. His business on Peas Hill had been taken over in 1890 by his nephew, Henry James Parson.
Crabb died on 19 December 1894 at the age of 65. His executor was Henry James Parson. He was buried in the parish area of St Edward in Mill Road Cemetery on 24 December, at a depth of 8 feet, his grave being row XXIX No. 7, next to that of his sister (XXIX No. 8), and a few feet from that of his brother-in-law and family (in row XXX).
Sources:
England census reports 1841‒1891
Free Births, Marriages & Deaths
Death Duty Registers 1796‒1903
St Edward’s Church, Cambridge, burial and grave registers
Spalding’s Street Directories of Cambridge
Mathieson’s Street Directory of Cambridge 1867
Crave, County of Huntingdon and Town of Cambridge, 1855
By Ian Bent