Great Great Aunt Cora Agnes Edworthy

My Great Great Aunt Cora (1886 - 1907) was an older sister of my Great Grandmother Winifred Violet Vernon (nee Edworthy) (1895 - 1982).

Cora was born on 21st November 1886 in Exeter, Devon, to William Edworthy (about 34), a railway guard and horse keeper/groom/carman, and Bessie Staddon Edworthy (nee Nott) (about 26), a housewife.

Cora was the fourth of six children (four girls and two boys):

• Edith Florence Jessie  1878 - 1895  (16)
• William Gilbert John  1880 - 1949  (69)
• Beatrice May  1882 - 1969  (86 or 87)
• Cora Agnes  1886 - 1907  (21)
• Frederick 'Fred' Cecil  1888 - 1975  (87)
• Winifred Violet  1895 - 1982  (87)

Her middle name of Agnes may have been after her mother's youngest sister, Cora's maternal aunt, Agnes Nott.

Cora was baptised privately, at the new family home in Hoopern Street, on the same day as her birth - a practice often done if the child was not expect to live long. Possibly due to complications at her birth, Cora retained only the abilities of a very young infant. She was unable to talk, and had to be washed, dressed, fed etc by others. Beatrice's parents tried to care for Cora at home, but struggled.

Cora was initially sent to Earlswood Asylum, in Surrey, at some point before 1901 - she can be found there, aged fourteen, on the 1901 Census. It is sad to read: they term her, and her fellow inmates, 'imbeciles'.

Old photograph of Earlswood Asylum

1901 Census:

Modern photograph of Earlswood Asylum

Why Cora was initially sent so far away from her family, I do not know. Her older brother, William, was at least in the same county (Surrey), working briefly for the railway in Woking.

Nevertheless, by 1904, her parents had got her back closer to home in Exeter. Cora would spend the remainder of her short life in Digby Hospital (Exeter City Asylum).

Old photograph of Digby Hospital

Modern photograph of Digby Hospital

Sadly Cora passed away from phthisis (pulmonary tuberculosis or a similar progressive wasting disease) at the asylum, aged only twenty-one, on 19th December 1907.

She was buried on 5th January 1908. Cora, as well as her father William and eldest sister Edith, is buried at Exeter Higher Cemetery in Heavitree, Exeter. Being poor their graves appear alas unmarked.