Another story from Christ Church churchyard…
Swindon Suffragette Edith New came from a large family with a lot of maiden aunts. Her mother Isabella had four sisters and her grandfather William Frampton also had four sisters.
In 1861 the Frampton family occupied three properties in Wood Street. Edith’s grandfather lived at what is now Balula’s Delicatessen. To his right lived his married sister Catherine Sharpe and to his left his widowed mother Ann and those three unmarried sisters.
By 1871 the sisters were at 4 Victoria street where they lived and worked for more than 30 years. One was a milliner, another a dressmaker and one a mantle maker, which was a type of cloak.
Catherine was widowed in 1865 and returned to Swindon from Malmesbury with her daughter to live with her sisters.
Jane died first in 1880 and Emma, Catherine and Ellen all died in 1902.
Edith was born in 1877 and would have been just three years old when Jane died, so probably had no memory of her. However, she would have grown up knowing the other three sisters. According to the 1901 census the women worked up until the year before they died.
I wonder what impression their situation made upon Edith and whether it contributed to her long fight for equality in the teaching profession and her involvement in the Votes for Women campaign.
This weathered headstone, which no longer marks the actual grave, records the burial of William Frampton’s four sister, Jane, Emma and Ellen, who never married, and Catherine who married William Sharpe.
You may also like to read:
Radnor Street Cemetery 
One thought on “The Frampton Sisters”