Charles Whiting 1873-1898

Parents: William Whiting and Elizabeth Jacobs (1,2)
Born: 1873 in Withersfield (1)
Baptised: 25th October 1874 at St Mary's Church, Withersfield (2)
Married: Ada Maria Smoothy, 23, spinster of Castle Camps, daughter of Charles Smoothy, labourer, deceased, on 9th November 1895 at St Mary's Parish Church, Haverhill. Witnessed by Charles Marsh and Florence Smoothy.(3,4)
Children: Florence Ethel Whiting b.1896
Died: May 1898. Buried at St Mary's Church, Withersfield on 9th May 1898.(5,6)

Bio: Charles was born in 1873, the last but one of William and Elizabeth's children.

He appears on the 1881 census, although by now his father is dead. He lives with his widowed mother and sisters Susan and Mary Ann and brothers George and William.

On the 1891 census Charles remains at home working as an agricultural labourer. Several of his siblings are also present, along with Edith the five year old daughter of his half-sister Susan.

Charles got married to Ada Smoothy in 1895 at St Mary's Church in Haverhill. She was the daughter of Charles Smoothy and Susannah Cornwell and had been born in Bottisham, Cambridgeshire. After her fathers death it seems Ada and her siblings lived with their mother in Crown Passage, Haverhill. We see them here at No.6 on the 1891 census. The marriage entry in the parish register states her place of residence as Castle Camps. Maybe she was working there at the time.

Charles and Ada had one daughter, Florence Ethel, who was born in 1896 in Haverhill.

Tragedy struck the young family two years later, when Charles died in 1898 at the age of 25. I'm not sure of the cause of his early death. He was buried at the Withersfield church on 9th May 1898.

On the 1901 census we find Ada and daughter Florence living with Ada's widowed mother Susannah at 34 Mount Road, Haverhill. Ada and her mother are working as hairweavers along with Ada's sister Esther. Her other sister Bessie is a trousers machinist.

Ada married again, in 1902, to David Poole. On the 1911 census we see them living 11 Chauntry Row, Haverhill. Florence is still at home, aged 14, working now as a dressmaker whilst her mother and stepfather both work as cloth weavers.

Ada lived until she was 78, dying in the Cambridge district in 1950.(7)

Sources:

(1) Birth Register. 2nd Quarter 1873, Risbridge District, Volume 4a Page 447
(2) Suffolk Baptism Register, SFHS, Clare Deanery, 1813-1900
(3) Marriage Register. 4th Quarter 1895, Risbridge District, Volume 4a Page 1227
(4) Suffolk Records Office, Bury St Edmunds, Parish Registers of St Mary's Church, Haverhill. Fiche 578/4/28 of 37
(5) Death Register. 2nd Quarter 1898, Risbridge District, Volume 4a Page 374
(6) Suffolk Burial Index, SFHS, 1538-1900
(7) Death Register. 4th Quarter 1950, Cambridge District, Volume 4a Page 189