There are several members of the Orriss/Beer family buried in the Cemetery. None of their graves have been found during the many surveys of the Cemetery and are now believed not able to be found
Parishes: Holy Trinity, St Benet’s, Andrew the Less
Relationship: Mother, Father, five children, son in law and grandson
William Arthur Orriss (April 1849 – March 1927)
William was born in Chedburgh, a village five miles south west of Bury St Edmunds and was baptised there on 4 June 1849. He was the illegitimate son of Sophia Orriss (1824-1906) and grew up with his grandparents (1851) and then with his step father and siblings after Sophia married Robert Everett. He married Matilda Taylor in Cambridge in 1873 and they had ten children: Elizabeth Caroline (1876-1886), Edward Charles (1876-1945), William Arthur (1878-1880), Ellen Miriam (1883-1932), Walter Henry (1885-1955), Caroline Esther (1887-1971), William Arthur (1890-1968), Frank (1891-1942) and Elizabeth (1893-1894).
William worked as a coal porter and the family lived at 3 Gloucester Passage (1881). By 1891 they had moved to Walton Terrace, 111 East Road, where they lived with Mailtda’s mother Elizabeth. In 1901/1911 he was documented as being a labourer, and had retired by 1921. He died at home aged 77 years old and was buried in the Holy Trinity area of Mill Road Cemetery on 2 April.
Matilda Caroline Orriss (née Taylor) (1856 – October 1930)
Matilda was the eldest daughter of John Stokes Taylor (1818-1890) and Elizabeth (née Beach) (1827-1903). She grew up at 21 Wellington Street and her father worked as a labourer, by the age of 14 sshe was working as a general domestic servant (1871) and married just before her 17th birthday. She worked as a seamstress during her marriage and died at home aged 74 years old. She was buried in the Holy Trinity area of the Cemetery on 25 October.
Matilda’s parent are buried in the St. Benet’s area of the Cemetery, but their grave has also not yet been found.
Elizabeth Caroline Orriss (1875 – April 1886)
Elizabeth was born in Newcastle upon Tyne, where her parents appear to have lived briefly. She died at Wellington Passage aged 10 years old and was buried in the St. Benet’s area of the Cemetery on 19 April.
William Arthur Orriss (November 1878 – April 1880)
William was baptised at St. Andrew the Less on 29 June 1879 and died at Wellington Street aged 17 months old. He was buried in the St. Andrew the Less area of the Cemetery on 12 April.
Samuel John Orriss (c.December 1880 – November 1883)
Samuel died at Wellington Street aged 2 years old and was buried in the St. Andrew the Less area of the Cemetery on 5 November.
Elizabeth Orriss (3 November 1893 – January 1894)
Elizabeth was baptised at St. Benet’s on 9 November 1893. She died at 2 Britannia Place aged 2 months old and was buried in the St. Benet’s area of the Cemetery on 25 January.
Ellen Miriam Beer (née Orriss) (23 April 1883 – 23 April 1932)
Ellen was the second daughter of William and Matilda and was baptised at St. Andrew the Less on 24 June 1883. She married Charles Beer on 2 July 1903 at St. Benet’s Church and they had two children: Charles Edward (1908-1908) and Ivy Olive Winifred (1909-1988). Charles was a dairyman and they lived at 45 Riverside (1911), and he later worked as a filler at a petrol station on Station Road (1921). The Beer family moved to live with Ellen’s parents at 4 Walton Terrace, East Road from c.1919 onwards.
Ellen died on her 49th birthday and was buried in the Holy Trinity area of the Cemetery on 27 April. Her daughter placed an In Memoriam in the Saffron Walden Weekly News a year after her death which read ‘A light is from our household gone, A voice we loved is stilled, A place is vacant in our hearts, Which never can be filled’.
Charles George Beer (1876 – 9 August 1925)
Charles wsa born in Hackney, the son of shoemaker Charles Samuel and Augusta Beer. By 1891 the family had moved to Cambridge where they lived at Burleigh Street. Aged 16 Charles was working as a domestic valet. In September 1892 he was in court accused of stealing a feather from the hat of Ada Elsden. Ada said she had seen Charles leaving her house, and he had thrown her hat up to the window, but taken a feather. The case was dismissed, but Inspector Turrall ‘said he should now charge the prisoner on suspicion with stealing a number of foreign stamps which had been found in his possession’.
Some weeks later however he was charge with stealing a silver watch and £3, 10s in gold from student William Bythell from his rooms in St. John’s College. Inspector Turrall had decided to press charges on this theft, rather than the foreign stamps. Charles was accused of having passed the watch to his friend Harry Hutchins to pawn in London. The jury found both Charles and Harry guilty, but ‘they recommended them to mercy on account of their youth’ and they were sentenced to three months’ imprisonment with hard labour. The recorder had harsh words for the ‘carelessness of undergraduates in leaving the doors of their rooms unlocked when they were absent, and stated that when he was an undergraduate he would no more think of leaving his door unfastened than he would of leaving his watch upon the table in the Court’.
Charles enlisted with the Bedfordshire Regiment in 1893 and served in the Boar War, where he was ‘severely wounded’ with a large piece of shrapnel which got lodged in his body. After his marriage to Ellen he was a member of the New Street Men’s Bible Class.
Charles was found unconscious on his bedroom floor and died before medical help could arrive. At the inquest Matilda said he had come home from work the previous day and had been ‘in his usual state of health’. She said that he had suffered from dysentery since the Boar War, and in the middle of the night had complained of pains in his stomach. She had given him a ‘seidlitz powder’ and a whiskey, but had heard him fall from bed half an hour later. Dr Patrick of Newmarket Road, said that Charles had not sought medical advice for his dysentery and it might have been treatable if he had. The Coroner returned a verdict of ‘death by natural causes promited by dystentry which had not been attended to’. He was buried in the Holy Trinity area of the Cemetery on 13 August, with the vicar of St. Benet’s officiating.
Charles Edward Beer (24 May 1908 – June 1908)
Charles was the only son of Charles and Ellen Beer, grandson of William and Matilda Orriss. He was baptised on 19 June at St. Benet’s Church, but died days later at 1 Britannia Place . He was buried in the St. Benet’s area of the Cemetery on 26 June.
Sources:
Ancestry
Newspaper archives
Parish burial records
by Claire Martinsen
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