Rectory Lane Cemetery, Berkhamsted

Plot 358 Alice Mary Popple (1883-1959) Alice was born on 28th August 1883 in Berkhamsted, to John Popple, shoe maker, and Elizabeth (née Lovett.) She was baptised in St Peter’s 14 October that year. Alice attended the Berkhamsted and Northchurch National School. In 1891 the school records show that she won a prize for knitting at an exhibition in the Town Hall. The 1901 census records her, and her sister Elsie, living with her elderly great aunt Mary Lovett at 9, Victoria Road. Both young women (aged 19 and 17) were assistant mistresses at the elementary school. On 4 October 1907 Alice “commenced duties as Cookery Teacher” at the Berkhamsted National School. She never married. In 1911 Alice was living with her widowed mother and five siblings at “Sunnymead”, Charles Street. She was a teacher of cookery; her eldest brother Edward was headmaster of the elementary school; Harry was a commercial clerk; Herbert an insurance clerk, Elsie still an elementary school teacher and the youngest, Winifred Nancy, was still at school. In 1921 Alice, Harry and Nancy were still living with their mother. Harry was employed as a clerk by John Dickinson & Co, Alice was a “domestic instructress” and Nancy a teacher. The 1939 Register shows Alice and Harry living together at “Castle Rise”, 19, Castle Hill Avenue. Harry was a chief clerk at Dickinson’s and Alice was a teacher. They had a lodger, another teacher. Alice died 17 March 1959. She left £1,660 (£33,000 in 2024). Harry, her executor, died in 1961 and is buried here with her. Her parents and brother Edward are buried in plot 875.