Emma Eliza Brown was Tony’s patrilineal great great grandmother and was the daughter of Thomas Brown from Pampisford and Emily Cracknell from Linton, who married in 1850.
Thomas Brown was born in the village of Babraham, Cambridgeshire, in 1830. His father was James Brown, a widower in 1841 with three sons, and they were William b1826, James, his twin, and Thomas. They all lived with their grandmother Hannah Brown at Babraham. James moved the family to Pampisford around 1842, where all the family worked on the land.
In the late 1840’s son Thomas decided that he could earn a better living working in the growing industrial town of Sawston. In 1850, when he was aged 21, and working as a general labourer at the leather factory in Sawston, he married Emily Cracknell. Immediately after their marriage the couple moved into a cottage at Morley’s Yard, High St., Sawston, where he continued as a general labourer, in this skinning yard. Thomas and Emily had three children at Sawston, before he died in 1858, aged 28. The children were Sarah b1850, Alice b1853 and Emma b1856.
Widow Emily Brown then married James Dockerill in 1858, as she had three daughters to support. In 1871 James, aged 50, and Emily, aged 40, were still living at Morley’s Yard, where James was a general labourer. Emily was working as a bag cutter at the Sawston paper factory, as were her daughters, Sarah and Emma, who were paper picklers. Emily and James had two children, Robert b1859 and Fanny b1863.
Daughter Emma Brown, at 20 years, in 1876, married Thomas Parsons, another Sawston resident. She will continue our story as Emma Parsons.
