My Great x3 Half Aunt Lily (1882 - 1958) was a housewife, mother of four and a younger half sister of my Great Great Grandmother Emma Wright (nee Bennett) (1871 - 1944).
Lily was born on 27th September 1882, in Exeter, Devon, to James Clapperton (about 46), a Scottish veteran of the Crimean War and a draper's porter, and Sarah Ann Clapperton (formerly Bennett, nee Andrews) (about 38), a housewife.
I cannot find a record of marriage between Sarah Ann and James Clapperton, though they would live for years as husband and wife.
On 4th December 1882, Lily was baptised in St Sidwell's, Exeter.
Though baptised 'Lily Maud', on half of records she seems to go by 'Lilian' and also spell her middle name with an 'e'.
Lily had two old half siblings from her mother's first marriage to railway labourer James Bennett, who died after an accident at work:
- William 1868 - 1942 (73)
- Emma 1871 - 1944 (73)
Lily was the fifth of eight full siblings (four boys, four girls):
- James 1874 - 1936 (61)
- George Henry 1876 - 1952 (75)
- Albert 1878 - 1878 (2 months)
- Walter John 1880 - 1913 (32)
- Lily/Lilian Maude 1882 - 1958 (75)
- Minnie 1884 - 1956 (71)
- Ada 1886 - 1888 (1 year and 9 months)
- Florence 'Florrie' Mabel 1889 - 1975 (85)
On the evening of 11th April 1888, Lily's younger sister Ada was tragically killed - knocked down by a tram.
Ada was only a toddler, out of her mother's sight for barely a minute, while she fetched water from the house next door, and watched over by older brother George, aged only eleven. In a passing moment Walter, aged eight, left the front door open, going out to play with friends. Little Ada ran out, just when a tram came pass. The tram-driver braked suddenly, but too late.
From the Western Times on 17th April 1888:
At the time of the 1891 Census, eight-year-old Lily was not at her family home, but a patient at an Eye Infirmary on Magdalen Street, Exeter.
1891:
Did Lily have something wrong with her eyes? She is never listed on a census as blind, but she might have needed glasses or an operation on her eyes maybe to be spending the census night at the Eye Infirmary.
When Lily was a teenager, her parents' relationship fell apart. They had been living apart for fifteen months, when James was charged with assaulting Sarah in 1899. By then, Sarah was living with her future husband, stone mason William Luscombe.
I cannot presently find Lily or her younger sisters Minnie or Florrie on the 1901 Census, when they would have been about nineteen, seventeen, and twelve years old. They are with neither parent.
On 15th July 1905, Lily (22) married William Thomas Cutler (23), a soldier from Chobham, Surrey. They married in Exeter.
William (4485) was a private in the Royal Horse and Field Artillery. He enlisted on 14th February 1900, aged eighteen.
His census records gives us an idea of his appearance as a young man: he was 5'7'', had a fair complexion, light brown hair and greenish hazel eyes.
The 1901 Census shows William living at Topsham Barracks in Exeter. It was likely his service that brought him to Devon, meaning he and Lily could meet.
Lily and William had four children (2 sons and 2 daughters):
- William 'Willie/Will' Thomas 1906
- Beatrice 'Beattie/Beat' Lilian 1907
- Gladys Mabel 1909
- Walter George 1910 - 1947 (36)
Their first child, William, was born in Exeter. But the family must have moved to William's native Chobham in Surrey around 1908, for the younger three children were born there.
Before they left Exeter, Lily and William attended the funeral of her father.
On 18th January 1907, when Lily was twenty-four, James passed away, aged seventy-one, in Exeter. His death was reported in the Western Times on 23rd January 1907:
His funeral took place on 24th January 1907 at Exeter's Higher Cemetery. Owing to his military service, his funeral was highly attended and reported in the Western Times on 25th January 1907:
The little family then lived at Tower Cottage, Little Heath, Chobham.
William was a labourer, bricklayer and army reservist.
On 29th April 1910, Lily experienced tragedy again, when William was killed at work.
He passed away, aged only twenty-seven, at Woking, Surrey, from internal haemorrhaging. He and his fellow workmen had been employed in pulling down an old building, when the chimney unexpectedly fell down on top of William and one other man. William was injured, but conscious and taken to hospital. Sadly, he passed away there, within a few hours of the accident.
He left behind a young widow in Lily, aged twenty-seven, and three young children aged zero to three. Lily was about seven months pregnant at the time. William never got to meet his youngest child.
From the Woking News & Mail of 6th May 1910:
"In never fading memory of a devoted wife and children; for dear daddy, from Willie, Beattie and Gladys"
Under the Workmen's Compensation Act, Lily and the children received £173 7s 5d - "a third of which it was proposed should be invested for the widow and the two thirds to be invested for the four children".
According to the Bank of England's Inflation calculator, this amount seems to be about two years pay for a working man in 1910.
From the Surrey Advertiser of 15th October 1910:
Sweetly the 1911 Census shows Lily and the four children living next door to William's parents and siblings. They are not without support.
1911 Census:
In 1913, her older brother Walter passed away. In the Royal Marines for thirteen years, Walter had served on many ships, before being invalided out on 16th November 1911. Eighteen months later, he passed away, aged thirty-two, in April 1913. At the time of his death, Walter was living with their older brother George in Barnstaple.
His death was reported in the North Devon Herald of 10th April 1913:
Before she was thirty, Lily had lost two siblings, her father and husband.
Three years after William's untimely passing, Lily remarried.
In Oct/Nov/Dec 1913, Lily (about 31), a widow with four young children, married Canadian Leander William Brown (about 36), a steel erector and later brewery lorry driver, originally from Prince Edward Island. They married in the district of Chertsey, Surrey.
Though Leander's father and mother had both been born on Prince Edward Island, they were originally of Scottish ancestry and still Presbyterian. Lily herself was half Scottish.
At the time of the 1921 Census (and possibly again later in the 1939 Census), Leander was away working. Meanwhile, Lily's younger sister Minnie and one of her children were staying with Lily and her children.
1921 Census:
1939 Census:
I wonder if Lily was getting some income from renting rooms, as there are four individuals living with the Brown-Cutler family.
At the dawn of the Second World War, Lily's eldest son William would have been thirty-three and her younger son Walter would have been twenty-nine. Did they serve in the war?
On 13th January 1947, Lily's youngest child, Walter, passed away, aged thirty-six, in Guildford. Lily, and her other children - Will, Beat and Gladys - remembered Walter. They posted an 'in memoriam' in the local newspaper on the anniversary of his death every year into the 1950's. They put "In loving memory of a dear son and brother [...] Gone but not forgotten."
In Oct/Nov/Dec 1951, Lily's second husband Leander passed away, aged seventy-four, in Surrey.
In Apr/May/Jun 1958, Lily passed away, aged seventy-five, in Surrey.
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