Children of Cherrytree: Ellen Topham

Ellen Topham was admitted to the Cherrytree Orphanage on 8 Nov 1897 at the age of 8. She had been recommended to the Orphanage by two Reverend gentlemen from Attercliffe, F.A. McLane of Broad Oaks and William Alfred Guttridge of Chippingham Street.

Rev. Guttridge was the Pastor of the Zion Church and had been closely involved for many years in charitable appeals for the relief of poverty, or distress as it was then known.

The Orphanage had very strictly enforced admission rules at this time. Both parents had to be deceased and the child's birth certificate and the parents' marriage certificate had to be produced to prove that the child was aged between 5 and 12 and had been born in wedlock. Whilst all the relevant information has been faithfully transcribed into the Orphanage's Admissions Register, no date of marriage is recorded for Ellen's parents as they had never married. Somehow the two Reverend gentlemen had persuaded the Orphanage's Board of Trustees to admit her.

Ellen Topham was born on 8 April 1889 at 3 King's Arms Yard in the St. Mary's district of Nottingham. She was the daughter of Snowden Topham and Mary Shaw who had been living together as man and wife since around 1862. Snowden had been born in 1840 in Duffield, Derbyshire, the sixth of seven children of Jeremiah Topham, a millwright and his wife Elizabeth, née Sheward, who had married at St. Alkmund's Church, Derby on 1 November 1826. His unusual forename appears to have come from his namesake Snowden Topham (1775-1854), a millwright from Pentrich, Derbyshire who may have been his great uncle. Mary Shaw's birth was registered in the third quarter of 1849 in the Worksop registration district which included parts of north east Derbyshire. She was the first of four children born to Frederick Shaw, a basket maker and his wife Emma, née Capewell, who had married on 27 June 1848 in Eckington.

By the time of the 1871 Census, Mary and Snowden were lodging at 60 Goodwin Street, Derby. Snowden was a fitter and Mary a silk hand. They subsequently moved home to Albion Street. On Saturday 11 July 1874 the couple visited Mary's sisters Louisa and Rose who lived with their widowed father at Court No. 1 Orchard Street and were joined there by William Eyre, a 25 year old shoemaker from Friar Gate, and by two other women and a 15 year old girl. An evening of drinking resulted in all of the adults becoming intoxicated and a fight broke out between Snowden and Eyre which resulted in the latter's death from a single knife wound to the groin. When examined by the magistrates, Snowden denied murder claiming that Eyre had accidentally impaled himself upon a knife which he, Snowden, had been using to cut tobacco. Defence council argued that there was no premeditation or malice involved and so instead of murder Snowden was committed for trial for a lesser crime.

On 6 March 1875 to the charge of feloniously killing and slaying William Eyre, Snowden Topham pleaded not guilty. The case for the prosecution was heard after which Snowden's employer, Mr Abell, and his foreman, Henry Gibson, gave evidence as to Snowden's quiet, inoffensive character. The judge, in summing up, said it was not at all probable that the stab wound was the result of an accident. The question for the jury was whether Snowden's own life was in such immediate peril that the use of the knife was justified. After only a few minutes deliberation, the jury returned a verdict of not guilty and Snowden was acquitted. The events were reported at length in the North Midlands newspapers and a modern re-telling of the story appears as Chapter 32 of Scott C. Lomax's book Deadly Derbyshire: Tales of Murder & Manslaughter c.1700-1900 (Wharncliffe Books, 2011). Crucially, however, Lomax gets the verdict wrong as prison records confirm.

Mary and Snowden's first child, Frederick Topham, was born in Derby in 1879. The family had moved to Cavendish Buildings in Bridge Street by July 1881 when once again they were back in court. The police had been alerted by cries of "Murder!" coming from the building and found Snowden bleeding copiously from a wound from the temple. He was taken to Dr. Price, a surgeon, who stitched up the wound saying that it was a good thing Snowden had received medical aid immediately otherwise he would have bled to death, an artery having been severed. Mary was charged with assault on her husband. She said that an argument had broken out and he hit her and she had retaliated, hitting him with a cup. Snowden declined to press charges. The Bench dismissed the case giving Mary a warning and then charged Snowden for being drunk and disorderly. He had followed Mary down to the lock-up and wouldn't go away. He was fined five shillings. Snowden Topham was convicted on two further charges of being drunk and disorderly in 1883 and 1886.

Their second son, Snowden Topham junior, was born in Derby 1882. They moved to live in Nottingham where Ellen was born in 1889. It is possible that they may have had other children who died in infancy. Just as they didn't formalise their marriage, it would seem that they didn't baptize their children either and birth registrations by themselves are inconclusive. By the time of the next census in 1891 the family had moved to Sheffield and were living in Court No. 18, Attercliffe Road. Ellen is missing from the entry and we have been unable to find her elsewhere. Her father was a labourer at a steel foundry and appears under the name John Topham. We can only speculate why, but he used the name John for the rest of his life. Perhaps he was hoping to make a fresh start. Frederick and young Snowden were at school.

The Cherrytree Orphanage records show that Ellen Topham attended Attercliffe Board School but nothing is known about her early life and childhood illnesses. Her father died on 5 June 1894 aged 53. Her mother Mary died on 2 March the following year aged 45 leaving the three children orphaned. Frederick was then aged 15, Snowden junior aged 12 and Ellen aged 5. What became of them in the short term we do not know but the two boys were living together in Derby in 1901, boarding with the family of Henry Spooner, an iron moulder, at 1 Gates Buildings. They too were working in the iron and steel trade.

Meanwhile Ellen had been found a place at Cherrytree Orphanage. Nothing is known of her time there except that she was best friends with Mabel Wilkes, a girl of similar age who had been admitted to the Orphanage a few months before Ellen. Ellen Topham died at the Orphanage on 28 May 1904, aged 15. The death certificate records that she died of acute phthisis (a wasting disease, probably pulmonary tuberculosis), having been ill for 21 days. She was attended by Dr. Charles Augustus Thorne, the well-known local doctor who lived at The Glen on Abbeydale Road South. Ellen Topham was buried at Dore Christ Church on 30 May in the same grave as two other Cherrytree orphans, Louisa Foster (1858-1878) and Mary Ann Thornhill (1880-1892).

Ellen Topham's grave, Dore Christ Church