Vincent Littlewood Roberts MA MD

My great grandfather was born on 24th September 1862, so he is thirty one years old in the photograph. He went to Cambridge University and qualified as a doctor of medicine. His early years after qualification were spent in the Eccllesall and nearby Abbeydale districts of Sheffield. By the mid 1890's he was practising in Attercliffe. That must be why my father referred to him as "The Attercliffe Man".

Vincent was very unlucky in his two marriages. He married Ellen Cundy Boyd on 11th August 1888. They were both twenty six years old. But they were married at Ecclesall Register Office, which was very strange. Although Ellen was the daughter of William James Gibson Boyd, a traveller who died in 1865 at the age of thirty one of pulmonary consumption, and the granddaughter of a publican, by the time she married Vincent she was living with her mother and stepfather who was an electroplater and gilder with forty three employees. The witnesses at the wedding were not from either family, so something was not right.

Vincent and Ellen were very happy (Vincent requested in his will that he be buried next to his first wife). Their son Stanley was born on 21st October 1889, but on 12th July 1893 Ellen died of a malignant disease of the spleen after an illness of six months. She was only thirty years old. She was buried at Ecclesall Parish Church.

In 1897, Vincent married Helen Fairburn, this time in Sharrow Parish Church, with family in attendance, including Helen's father Robert, a solicitor. Vincent was thirty five and Helen twenty three. In 1901 their son John Shearwood Roberts was born, but he died a year later. He is buried at Ecclesall Parish Church and there is a monument in the graveyard.

In 1917, Vincent encountered yet another tragedy. His second wife Helen died. She was buried next to their son on 28th December. Vincent went on to live for another 23 years, he never married again. He died on 24th August 1940 at the age of 77 in the air raid shelter of 35 Bradway Road, next door to his home at number 33. His housekeeper, Lilian Burnham, was with him when he died. He requested in his will that he be buried next to his first wife Ellen. However the church records show that he was buried next to his second wife Helen and their son. It may have been that the whereabouts of Ellen's grave was not known (there is no location in the church burial index), or it was wartime, or Helen was confused for Ellen. However, they are all buried in the churchyard of All Saints, Ecclesall.

The following photograph was kindly sent to me by my cousin Lesley Gray. It is dated September 1926 so Vincent is 64 years old.

An even later photo.