Rectory Lane Cemetery, Berkhamsted

Winifred East

Infant daughter of Charlotte and Adnall East

• Christopher Dolton

WINIFRED EAST; 1885 -1887

The cemetery burial records tell us that another member of the extended East family is buried in Rectory Lane cemetery, but apart from the surname, East, the record tells us nothing more; no first name or date of death and the memorial, if there was one, has now been lost. Without a headstone or memorial this particular member of the family was not identified when the Hertfordshire Family History Society surveyed and recorded the memorials in the cemetery in 2014-2015.

However, we are able to make an identification with the help of records made in the early years of the 20th century by Mr W.B. Gerish. He was a keen antiquarian and in 1898 he was instrumental in founding the East Herts Archaeological Society. He undertook the recording of monumental inscriptions in Hertfordshire graveyards, including Rectory Lane cemetery. There are a number of inscriptions recorded by Gerish which do not appear in the 2014-2015 survey, suggesting that the memorials he recorded which are not in the later survey have been lost in the intervening one hundred years or so. One such inscription recorded by Gerish from Rectory Lane cemetery which is now lost is “EAST, Winnie, 8th May 1885, died 27th December 1887, age 2 yrs 7 m.”

Winnie, or Winifred as she was named when her birth was registered was the sixth child born to Adnall and Charlotte East (plot 496). Her registration record tells us that she was born in the second quarter of 1885 and the date Gerish gives us of 8th May 1885 falls within that quarter. Her death registration tells us she died in fourth quarter of 1887, again that corresponding with the date Gerish gives for her death.

Adnall and Charlotte’s first born child, Ernest had died young at the age of five in 1879. Their second son, Arthur, was born in 1876, before Ernest died, but their third son was born in 1880 and he was named Ernest after the older deceased child. The same happened with Winifred. In 1888, the year after the infant Winifred had died, Charlotte gave birth to her last child, another daughter. She too was named for her deceased sibling, in this case Winifred.