Hooper Street
Wembley, 5 Hooper Street
A house with a workshop used by a dairyman, a furniture dealer, a fish merchant and a master plumber
Wembley, 5 Hooper Street, is a large detached house built around 1881, and now divided into flats. Its immediate neighbours are no. 3 (Jubilee House) and no. 6. Behind the house there was once a workshop, now replaced by modern houses.
It first appears as no. 5 in the 1901 census, but it may be the house listed as no. 3 in the 1891 census: see notes below. NB I hope to be able to resolve some of these mysteries once libraries re-open!
1891 census (3 Hooper Street)
George H Himus, 35, dairyman & carpenter, b. Cambridge
Sarah E Himus, 27, b. Cambridge
Henry W Himus, 3, b. Cambridge
Jessie M Himus, 2 months, b. Cambridge
William J Banyard, lodger, 30, draper's assistant, b. Cambridge
William Banyard was Sarah Himus's brother.
In the Kelly's Directory of 1883, under the heading 'Dairymen and cowkeepers', George's father Henry Hymus was listed as living at 3 Hooper Street. Just two years earlier, in the 1881 census, he lived at 6 Hooper Street. The 1881 census indicates that the plot between no. 6 and no. 2 (the number then used for Jubilee House) was a building site: it is marked '1B', where B = 'building'. It's possible that the newly finished house was initially called no. 3 but later became no. 5.
Charles Sharpe, 40, furniture dealer, b. Cambridge
Mary Sharpe, 42, b. Cambridge
Frederick Sharpe, 21, porter (light), b. Cambridge
Nellie Sharpe, 18, b. Cambridge
Earnest Sharpe, 17, b. Ely
May Sharpe, 16, b. Ely
Ethel Sharpe, 16, b. Ely
Ada Sharpe, 16, b. Ely
Bertie Sharpe, 15, b. Ely
Florie Sharpe, 12, b. Ely
Edith Sharpe, 6, b. Cambridge
May and Ethel Sharpe were twins; their sister Ada was actually 14 or 15. The Sharpes were to have twelve children in total.
In 1891 the family had been living in Ely. All the children attended school except for 11 year-old Jessie: by her name in the census record are the words 'school mistress refused to have her'.
Charles Sharpe was a furniture dealer running his business from home, and he would have used the workshops behind the house. He occasionally advertised more unusual items for sale in the newspapers, including this one from the Cambridge Daily News of 10 January 1902:
The same month he was fined 2 shillings and 6 pence (Cambridge Daily News, 11 January 1902) for leaving his horse and van on the highway in Harston for a 'long and unreasonable time' – 52 minutes: 'Defendant expressed his regret … He was at a wood sale, and thought he was not away for more than a quarter of the time he was.'
By 1911 Charles Sharpe had moved his family to Newmarket Road, but Kelly's Directory of 1916 still lists the business at 5 Hooper Street, suggesting that he kept the use of the premises behind the house. In 1916 he was fined for violating wartime lighting regulations by leaving a window of his Hooper Street workshop uncovered at night (Cambridge Independent Press, 17 March 1916).
John Parkes, 28, fish merchant, employer, b. Sleaford, Lincolnshire
Mabel Parkes, 21, b. Boston, Lincolnshire
Leonard Parkes, 3, b. Cambridge
Thomas Hague, boarder, 23, fish hawker, b. Sheffield
John Parkes was from Sleaford but brought up in Boston, Lincolnshire, where he met Mabel. His father was a trawlerman, and had been away at sea during the 1901 census.
1939 England and Wales register (5 Hooper Street)
The inhabitants were Arthur Allebone, his wife Kate, and five sons and daughters. Arthur was a master plumber, and two of his adult sons worked in the family business. He may have let out part of the business premises, as the 1935 Spalding's Directory lists J. P. Harper as also using the workshop.
Arthur, Kate and two of their sons were still living at the house in the 1950s, and an Arthur Allebone (possibly the elder son) was living there in 1966. Arthur Allebone senior died in 1973.
UK census records (1841 to 1911), General Register Office birth, marriage and death indexes (1837 onwards), the 1939 England and Wales Register, electoral registers, and local newspapers available via www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk.
Florence Villa, 23 Hooper Street
Jubilee House (Edinburgh House), 3 Hooper Street
8 Hooper Street
28 Hooper Street