Rectory Lane Cemetery, Berkhamsted

Ada Wagstaff (née Mosley) was born in 1843, the daughter of Richard Mosley a Jeweller and pen maker in Hatton Garden. (7) She was a member of the Swedenborgian Church.

She married fellow Swedenborgian Philip Wagstaff on the 31 Aug 1876 at Camden Road. (5)

In 1881 Philip’s half-sister Ellen Eliza married Ada’s brother Ernest Mosley, they were also both Swedenborgian.

Philip was an engineer with the East Indian Railway company, based in Calcutta. Ada moved to Calcutta to join him, and their first child Cyril Mosley Wagstaff was born there on 5 Mar 1878.

Philip retired in 1900, aged 60. (9) In 1880 he was listed as one of the highest paid employees of the East India railway.

Philip and Ada had a further three children:

• Dorothy Margaret born 1880 in Calcutta,
• Lewis Cecil born 23 Jan 1882 at Ada’s Mothers house in Islington
• Marjorie Edith born 1884 in Calcutta.

By 1891 Ada had returned to England with her four children and was living in Kitsbury Road, Berkhamsted. It is possible that she wanted the children to be educated in England and rather than sending them to boarding school she moved back with them. On the 1901 census the house is named as “Blendworth” a large Victorian Villa of 11 rooms at the end of Kitsbury Terrace. Philip has now retired and was living there with his wife and two daughters, they have two female domestic servants.

Ada died 1908 aged 65 and by the time of the 1911 census Philip was recorded as a widow, still living at ‘Blendworth’ with his two daughters.