CFHS code : AG124
Parish : St Andrew the Great
Inscription : In Loving Memory of EDITH ISOBEL SMITH d July 29th 1933 aged 37 ARTHUR SMITH d Jany 12 1948 aged 75 LILY EDITH SMITH d Sept 11 1950 aged 79
Monument : Headstone
Above information from Cambridge Family History Society Survey
Lat Lon : 52.202799, 0.13685114 – click here for location
Monument
Inscription
In Loving Memory of EDITH ISABEL SMITH who passed away July 29th 1933 aged 37 years
“At Rest”
ARTHUR SMITH died Jan 12 1948 aged 75 years
LILY EDITH SMITH died Sept 11 1950 aged 79
Edith Isabel Smith (1896 – 29 July 1933)
Edith was the eldest child of Arthur and Lily Smith and was known as Edie. Arthur worked as a tailor and she grew up at Orchard Street, Perowne Street (1911) and later at 74a Burleigh Street. In 1911 she was working as a tailoress. She drowned in the River Cam aged 37 years old. The inquest heard that Edie had suffered a nervous breakdown two years earlier, and had slept with her mother since. Lily woke to find her daughter missing at 5.30am and found the back gate unlocked. When Arthur went to look for her, he found her body in the river near Victoria Bridge and immediately started mouth to mouth resuscitation, but to no avail.
Arthur told the inquest that ‘he did not know what had depressed her. She was one of the most light-hearted of girls. He could have understood what had happened had she had a sweetheart but she never had had one. She did not work other than assisting her mother’. The family later found that Edie had written a note in the margin of the Cambridge Daily News which read ‘Goodbye my darlings, I love you all, but I cannot go on. My mother, my pal. From Edie’. The coroner determined that Edie had died from the shock of entering the water, rather than drowning and returned a verdict of ‘suicide during temporary insanity’.
Arthur Smith (13 October 1871 – 12 January 1948)
Arthur was born in Cambridge, the youngest son of tailor Ebenezer William Smith (1835-1897) and Harriet (née Kirby) (1838-1880). He was baptised at St. James’ Church, Westminster on 6th December 1874, when Ebenezer and Harriet had all six of their children baptised in one ceremony. In 1881 Arthur was living in Westminster with his widowed father and two siblings. In 1891 he was living with his maternal grandmother at the Gate Cottage of Magdalene College. Arthur married Lily Hunt on 28 October 1895 at St. Luke’s Church, Derby and they had four children: Edie, Alfred Arthur (1897-1976), Percy William (1900-1979) and another child who died as an infant. Arthur worked as a master tailor and died at home aged 76 years.
Lily Edith Smith (née Hunt) (13 December 1870 – 11 September 1950)
Lily was born in Chesterton, the daughter of James (1843-1925) and Amelia (née Clee) (1845-1916). James Hunt was a printer and she grew up on the Histon Road (1871) and later Bradmore Street (1881). Aged 20 Lily was working at the White Hart Hotel in Newmarket (1891) before marrying Arthur when she was 24 years. She died in a nursing home on Chaucer Road aged 79 years.
Sources:
Ancestry
Newspaper archives
by Claire Martinsen
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