Rectory Lane Cemetery, Berkhamsted

Mary Ann (nee Paine) was born in 1846 to Percival Paine and Mary Paine of Wingrave, Buckinghamshire. By the time of the 1851 census she was already earning a living as a straw plaiter. Ten years later and her mother, a washer woman, was a widow. Mary Ann continued to contribute to the family finances with her straw plaiting. On 17th April 1872 she married Frank Waterton, a nurseryman, at Wingrave in Buckinghamshire. At some point over the next nine years they moved to Carlton, presumably for her husband’s work as a Railway Goods Guard.   According to the 1881 census they were living in Traffic Terrace. She gave birth to three children in the next decade and the family moved to Islington. A fourth child followed. They returned to Hertfordshire, to Berkhamsted, where her husband continued to work as a railway goods guard. After a life working on the railways he died on 19th August 1924 aged 71. Mary Ann lived on for another seven years.