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Ambrose Frederick SMITH (1854–1912)
His daughter Ellen Mary SMITH (1884–1891)
St Paul's section: Row 18, Grave E15 [St Paul ref. Q17]

Ambrose Frederick Smith was born in the St Thomas's district of Oxford in 1853/4. He was the son of the butcher Ambrose Henry Smith, who was a Roman Catholic, and Frances Ann Kimber, who were married at Kingston Bagpuize church on 24 January 1851. At the time of the 1861 census Ambrose Frederick (7) was at home at 10 Worcester Place, Oxford with his parents and four younger siblings. In 1871 Ambrose (17) was still at school and living at 10 Worcester Place with his parents and seven of his siblings. In 1881 he was a butcher like his father, and still living at that address with his parents.
For more information on his parents, see their separate grave

In the the third quarter of 1884 in Fulham, Ambrose Frederick Smith married Bertha Adeline Goldsworthy (who was born in New Osney, Oxford in 1863 and baptised at St Thomas's Church on 30 August). She was the daughter of the engine fitter Thomas Goldsworthy and his wife Ellen who lived at 5 Cranham Street, and does not appear to have been a Roman Catholic. They had five children:

• Ellen Mary Smith (born in Oxford in 1884, registered Headington district fourth quarter)
• Ambrose Reginald D. Smith (born in Oxford in 1886, reg. third quarter)
• Charles Bernard Smith (born in Oxford in 1887, reg. fourth quarter)
• Monica Mary Smith (born in Oxford in 1888, reg. fourth quarter with first name spelt Monace)
• Wilfrid Frederick Smith (born in Oxford on 12 April 1890).

At the time of the 1891 census Ambrose (37), a butcher, was living at 5 Worcester Place with his wife Bertha (27) and their children Ellen (6), Ambrose (4), Charles (3), Monica (2), and Wilfrid (eleven months). Also living with them was Bertha's sister Matilda May Goldsworthy (15), who doubtless helped with the children.

Their eldest child Ellen died just eighteen days after that census was taken:

† Ellen Mary Smith died at 5 Worcester Place at the age of 6½ on 23 April 1891 and was buried at St Sepulchre’s Cemetery on 27 April (burial recorded in the parish register of St Paul's Church).

Following the death of Ambrose Frederick Smith's father in 1893 and his mother in 1895, he and his family moved back to their house at 10 Worcester Place, where he had grown up. His butcher's shop is listed in directories as having been at 119 and 120 in Oxford's Covered Market.

At the time of the 1901 census Ambrose (47) and Bertha (37) were at home at 10 Worcester Place with their four surviving children, namely Ambrose Reginald (14), who was a butcher's apprentice, and Charles (13), Monica (12), and Wilfrid (10). They employed an 18-year-old servant girl, and also had a lodger, Hugo Richard Arblaster Cook (26), Staffordshire-born civil engineer.

They were still at 10 Worcester Place in 1911: Ambrose (57) was described as a butcher with a shop, and still at home with him and his wife were their sons Charles (23), who was a librarian at the University of Oxford, and Wilfrid (20), who was a grocer's assistant. Their nephew and three boarders were also with them, and they still had a servant girl. Ambrose junior (24) is hard to locate, but Mary (22) was working as a nurse in Manchester.

Ambrose died the following year:

† Ambrose Frederick Smith died at 10 Worcester Place at the age of 58 on 8 April 1912 and was buried at St Sepulchre’s Cemetery on 10 April (burial recorded in the parish register of St Paul's Church).

In the fourth quarter of 1913 in the Headington registration district Ambrose's widow Mrs Bertha Adeline Smith (50) married her former lodger Hugo Richard Arblaster Cooke (38), and by 1935 they were living at 77 Southmoor Road, Oxford. He died there at the age of 73 on 6 July 1948. His effects came to £1,015 12s. 10d., and Bertha was his executor. Mrs Bertha Adeline Cooke herself died there at the age of 91 on 16 April 1955. Her effects came to £1,974 9s. 1d., and her executor was her son Charles, a retired civil servant.

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The surviving children of Ambrose Frederick Smith

• Ambrose Reginald D. Smith (born 1886) married Dorothy Axtell in the Westminster district in the first quarter of 1912
• Charles Bernard Smith (born 1887) became a colonial civil servant in Nigeria, and was awarded an M.A. and an O.B.E. On 2 September 1920 in Caernarvon, he married Muriel A. A. Tasker, who was born in the Bangor district in 1888 and was the second daughter of R. Branton Tasker of Caernarvon. Their two children were born in Caernarvon: Ambrose Branton Smith in 1921 and Jane Adeline Smith in 1924. By 1949 Charles Bernard Smith was living at The Croft, 387 Woodstock Road. He died there at the age of 72 on 26 February 1960. His effects came to £5,961 12s. 8d., and his executors were his son Ambrose and his daughter Sheila, now Mrs Ross.
• Monica Mary Smith (born 1888) is probably the woman of that name, born on 20 December 1888, who died in Hitchin at the age of 86 near the beginning of 1975.
• Wilfrid Frederick Smith (born 1890) is hard to trace immediately after 1911, He was living at 66 Southfield Road, Oxford by 1935 and at 286 Iffley Road by 1949. He died in Oxford at the age of 79 in 1969.