David Ellingham (1794 - 1869)
"Does the road wind uphill all the way? Yes, to the very end"

by Chris Phillips

When David Ellingham and his son Philip were buried in graves B763 and B764 on 8th October 1869 more than a thousand people crowded into Ely Cemetery “presenting” as the Cambridge Independent Press reported “such a sight as was never before witnessed (there)”.  The story of the Ellinghams is full of interest and worth recounting.

David Ellingham, whose parents were John and Ann, came from farming stock and was born in October 1794. The youngest child of a large family, he was baptised in Littleport parish church on 2nd November in the same year.   There are no on-line records that shed any light on his childhood and upbringing but in the years leading up 1820 three important things happened to him that were to shape the course of his life.  First, he secured a position in the firm of Messrs Evans, Archer & Evans who were Ely's leading solicitors and who counted amongst their clients the Dean and Chapter of the cathedral. Employed as a clerk, David remained with the firm until his death no doubt over the course of more than fifty years acquiring no little knowledge of the law and some considerable respect amongst his colleagues.  Second, he married and parish records for Ely, Holy Trinity record that the wedding took place on 31st December 1817. David's bride was Sarah Brumfield but the register gives little information about her other than to say that she was 'Of this parish'. There was certainly a Brumfield family living in Ely at the time and it may well be that she was a daughter of Edward and Susanna Brumfield.  Third, probably in 1819 or 1820, David abandoned the Church of England and became a member of the Countess of Huntingdon's Connexion chapel - he remained a faithful member of the congregation for half a century. The Connexion, founded by Selina, Countess of Huntingdon, was a product of the great Evangelical Revival of the late eighteenth century and much influenced by the Calvinistic ideas of George Whitefield, one of the great preachers of his day. The chapel, which still stands in Chapel Street, was opened in 1785 only two years after the founding of the group and throughout the next century it thrived as an important rival in the town, in terms of membership and influence,  both to the Established Church and to other Nonconformist bodies.

Less than a year after they were married a son, baptised Charles Taylor at St Mary's church on 10th October 1818, was born to David and Sarah. In the years that followed nine other children were added to the family and these were all baptised at the Countess of Huntingdon's chapel. They were Joshua (b. 1820), Selina (b. 1824) and no doubt named for the Countess, twins David and Sarah (b. 1828), Mary (b.1829), John (b.1832), twins Samuel and Hannah (b. 1834) and Philip Edward (b. 1836).  Five of these children, however, died before they reached their teens. Selina was buried on 2nd October 1830 and Mary on 4th January 1831. Then in the high summer of the latter year Charles who was approaching his thirteenth birthday was drowned trying to swim across the river at the Cresswells – the riverside path towards Queen Adelaide. He was buried on the 26th August leaving behind, no doubt, a grieving family who had lost three children in less than a year.  Another heavy blow followed in December 1835 when Sarah died, aged 7. Hannah too does not appear to have survived infancy. These deaths all took place before 1837 when births, marriages and deaths began to be recorded centrally and so it is not possible to know what illnesses carried off the four girls. The surviving boys remained at home but the family was to suffer more bereavement when in 1847 Joshua, who had become a schoolmaster, died and then in 1851 when David's wife passed away.  Even by early Victorian standards the death rate amongst the members of the Ellingham family was great.

By the time of the 1851 census the remaining Ellinghams were living in Lynn Road. The record reveals an interesting fact in as much as David's occupation is given as 'Attorney's Clerk' but in addition he is described as a farmer of more than a hundred acres of land on the edge of Ely and the employer of two farm hands. Running the farm were John Ellingham and his brother David junior. The two other boys were apprenticed - Samuel to a draper and Philip to a chemist and druggist.
 
As the 1850s progressed family affairs ran more smoothly. On 9th April 1852 there was at last a happy event to celebrate when the recently widowed David married Hannah Warren in a ceremony conducted by The Rev'd Richard Squibb the minister of their chapel and a prominent figure in local Nonconformist circles.  John and David junior continued to work on the farm, Samuel went to live in Cambridge and abandoned drapery to take up a post as a barrister's clerk. Philip joined the army serving in the 15th The King's Hussars before transferring to become a sergeant dispenser at Netley Army Hospital near Southampton.

There was upheaval of a different kind when David junior emigrated to Australia. He arrived there toward the end of 1852 on the New Orleans – the passenger list describing him as a farmer.  He settled in Victoria and on 15th October 1855 married an Irish girl, Sarah Foley. The couple had six children and three of them were named for David's late siblings – Selina, Sarah and Charles Edward. It does not seem, however, that David farmed in Australia. One document describes him as a 'carter' and another as a 'clerk' but what is certain is that like so many men he was caught up in the Victorian Gold Rush and spent several years at various diggings. Whether he earned a decent living cannot be known but by 1865 he was ailing and on 27th August he died, of liver failure according to the death certificate that described him as a miner.  He left six children all under the age of eight. What happened to his widow and the six young Ellinghams is beyond the scope of this study but it is surely a story waiting to be told!

​Samuel married Emma Moore in 1861. A son, Samuel John, born to them in 1862 later emigrated to the United States where he married and for many years was a bar keeper in Haverhill, Massachusetts. Another child, Charles Edwin, lived only a few months in 1866/67 and Samuel himself died in March 1869 aged only 35. It was another untimely loss for the Ellingham family but it was only the beginning of the year's events that would next see the deaths of David himself and his son Philip.  

At the beginning of October David had a stroke and it was clear that his life was drawing to a close. Word was sent to Philip and he travelled from Southampton but arrived too late to see his father alive.  He was told of his father's death and became, according to local newspaper reports, “greatly excited”. In the evening, still in an agitated state, he visited various friends but on his way home as he walked past the almshouses in St Mary's Street he collapsed. Passers by  carried him to the White Lion Inn just a little way along the street and sent for Dr Sinclair – but he never regained consciousness and died later the same evening.  At the ensuing inquest the cause of death was stated to be apoplexy – a stroke. He had been a popular man with his colleagues at Netley Hospital and a fine pianist for whom his friends at the hospital had bought a piano but as the Cambridge Independent Press reported “the young man who came to attend his father's funeral, was destined never to return.”
 
The funeral of father and son took place on 8th October and the Cambridge Independent Press of the 16th reported the event in some detail:

The funeral procession started from Mr Ellingham's house shortly after 3 o'clock; the father's coffin being borne first by six members of the Lady Huntingdon's Chapel .. the pall was also borne by six members of the same place of worship. Then followed the coffin of Sergeant Ellingham which was carried by six sergeants of the staff of the Ely Militia; the pall bearers being six members of the Ely Voluntary Rifle Corps. The usual military honours at the grave would have been paid over the remains of the sergeant but from the fact of his father's funeral taking place at the same time. The last rites at the grave were performed by The Rev. R. Squibb, minister of the Countess of Huntingdon's Chapel. The two graves were side by side

​A letter received from Philip Ellingham's fellow-sergeants was reprinted in the same newspaper and described him thus: “(he was) a universal favourite and held in the highest esteem by all who knew him being one of the men of real gentlemanly feelings and strictly honourable conduct one meets with in the ranks of the Army; and his untimely death leaves a blank amongst us which will not be easily filled up.”
 
Of all David's children only John lived on into old age – he died in Ely, unmarried, in 1922 having spent many years working on the land and living as a boarder in various inns in the city. David's second wife, Hannah, for several years remained in the family home in Lynn Road. She ran a Servants' Registry matching up servants and employers; her advertisements appeared in local newspapers during the 1870s. By the time of the 1881 census, however, she had retired and  was living in Cambridge at the home of her brother and sister-in-law – she died 1888.

“Does the road wind uphill all the way? Yes to the very end.” is a quotation from a poem by Christina Rosetti written in 1862 and in essence it seems an apt comment on David Ellingham's life into which loss and grief came often. No doubt he was sustained by his faith and the community he became so much a part of at the 'Countess' chapel.