Rectory Lane Cemetery, Berkhamsted

Plot 486 – Ellen Caroline Morsley – died 19th. January 1940, aged 57 years Ellen Caroline Morsley, nee Pocock, was born on 2nd August 1882 in Berkhamsted and was baptised at St. Peter’s Church on the 10th September that year.   She was the third little girl born to Arthur Pocock, a shoemaker, and his wife Jane nee Davis. Arthur and Jane were both Hertfordshire born and bred, Arthur from Berkhamsted and Jane from Cheddington. They had married in 1877, but their first child, a baby girl named Alice, had died in July 1879, aged just 9 weeks.  They had a second daughter Amy, in 1880 and Ellen Caroline followed in 1882.  Ellen was eventually one of the eleven children of Arthur and Jane, four of whom died in childhood, so she was one of a large family. In the 1891 Census the family are living at 3 High Street where Arthur (aged 33) describes himself as a Bootmaker. Jane is aged 37 and Ellen 9.  The other children are Amy (10), Mary Kate (4) and Edith (1). The three elder girls are all attending the local school.  Ellen’s little brother, Ralph John, had sadly passed away at the beginning of 1889, aged three. At the time of the 1901 Census we find the family at 21 High Street, Berkhamsted. Arthur, still described as a Bootmaker, was 43 and his wife Jane was 46. Amy and Ellen were not at home, so it’s likely that they were in Domestic Service, where they would live in and only come home on their days off – which were usually few and far between for the country’s domestic staff!  However their wages, though not high, could be sent home to help keep the rest of the family.  The children at home at that time were Mary Kate (13), Edith (11), Margaret (9), Arthur (7) – whose full name was Arthur Stanley Gladstone Pocock (!) – and the baby Edwin Leonard aged 2 In1908, on 17th June,  Ellen Caroline – aged 25 – married Harry John Morsley, the son of John and Mary Morsley of Berkhamsted.  They married at St. Peter’s Church, where Harry’s father was a Sacristan (a Church official). They moved into 60 High Street, Berkhamsted, where they are listed in the 1911 Census, Harry is described as a Grocer’s Outrider (a delivery man?).  Living with them is their two-year old son Ernest John (named Ernest after Harry’s young brother who died as a child and John after his father?)  Their daughter Elsie was born later that year. At the same time Ellen’s parents were living at 16 Clarence Road, Berkhamsted. Their three younger children Edith (21, Arthur (16) and Leonard (12) were still living with them.   Ellen’s father Arthur passed away in 1931, aged 74. Ellen and her husband Harry were living at 3 Franklin Road, Watford when he sadly  died on 28th November 1934, aged just 50. The following year she also lost her mother Jane, who passed away aged 78.  Happily, in 1936 her son Ernest married Margaret Easton in Watford and in 1939 was living in Woodhurst Avenue, Watford. Ellen was also still living in Franklin Road at the home she had shared with Harry, when she died peacefully on19th January 1940, aged 57.  The birth of her granddaughter, Janet – Ernest and Margaret’s daughter – was registered in the March Quarter of 1940, so it’s doubtful if Ellen managed to live long enough to see her. We can but hope that she got some comfort from knowing that the baby was due?  Ellen was buried at Rectory Lane Cemetery where she rests with her husband Harry.