More progress!
I put a query on the Ancestry message boards while I was on there earlier, and have already received this VERY helpful response:
From http://www.historical%20directories.org.
Gardner’s Gazeteer & Directory of Cambridge 1851
The following entry under Music & Musical Instrument Seller,
John Eastes, 65 Trumpington Street, Cambridge.
It says he is also a Music Teacher and has a Musical Circulating Library.
Looks like our man - and ties with the stuff I found. Now to try to find out a bit more about him - if possible the period of his business activity at least.
This isn’t conclusive yet as he could still have been a maker and we aren’t sure which Fentum we’re dealing with or if he actually made flutes, but the balance of probabilities is swinging to Terry’s hunch rather than mine!
ADDITION:
After doing some Cambridge directory checking on the site linked above, I can add the following:
Pigot’s Directory of 1830-1 lists a John Gifford as a Music and Musical Instrument Seller in (no No. given) Trumpington Street, Cambridge - could just be coincidence in what it appears is still today at least partially a shopping street - or this could perhaps be where young John took up his trade and/or (maybe later) took over the business? That is a wild speculation!
No Eastes appears in Pigot’s - not surprising as on the face of what we have so far our man John would only have been about 6 years old and presumably neither making nor playing music/flutes and still living in Kent where he would meet his wife before moving to Cambridge…
The Births, Deaths and Marriages registry records have two Cambridge born Children, Harriott or Harriett (b Dec 1847) and Julian D (b Dec 1849), and Baptismal records give their father as John - these seem to be the earliest probable records I’ve traced of the Eastes in the town.
An 1851 Census Cambridge resident is listed as “Tom” Eastes, (that has to be an 1851 Censor clerk’s error or a misreading by a modern transcriber), spouse Harriott.
The 1851 Census also records a putative son John Newport Eastes as residing in Cambridge, shown by BMD Registration as born in Canterbury in Dec 1845 when our John would have been 20 and his wife Harriott 18 but John N could belong to another Eastes family (unlikely - the 1851 Census seems to have no other Eastes resident in Cambridge, so far as I can tell) - would need to pursue the birth record… as indeed for the other Eastes Cambridge births I’ve traced, to see if there is more detail on their parents… The spacing of the births is consistent with the potential fertility of one woman. (Incidentally, BMD also gives a John Edward Eastes born in Canterbury in Mar 1843 - could just possibly be an early and perhaps short-lived first child for our couple? Again, would need further checking, and Eastes is a very common name in C19th Kent, it seems!)
Harriott the younger and Julian are also in the 1851 Census
Then we have the 1851 Gardner’s Directory entry already quoted.
Chronologically there follow the BMD records for the other Cambridge born children already quoted above, who may or may not be of the right parentage, including Louis who only lived 2.5 years.
Next is the 1861 Census which has John and Harriott, Harriott jnr, Julian, Courtenay, Eugenie and Nicholas as one would expect.
I haven’t been able to search any directories online for the 1860s, but the next directory I can access, a Postal one for 1869, has no Eastes in Cambridge either as private or trade listees that I can find. Nor am I getting any hits for Eastes in Cambridge in the 1871 Census. Kelly’s directory for 1883 is also a blank on Eastes in Cambridge. There are earlier Kelly’s for at least 1858 and 1864 (and I suspect they were an annual publication) and a Cassey’s for 1865, but not that I can access on-line (so far). Getting at those would be good.
By c1900, 65 Trumpington Street was occupied by Mr Crouch as noted previously, and in a 1916 Kelly’s it had become A Shears, confectioners!
The death of a John Eastes who may be our man (born Kent, 1825) is recorded in Cuckfield, W. Sussex for March 1903.
Summary thus far - John Eastes and his wife, with at least one son, move to Cambridge from Canterbury sometime between Dec 1845 and Dec 1847, he was in business under his own name in 1850-1, still in town in 1861, but seemingly gone by 1869. That gives a time-window for our flute of c1846-c1870, always assuming we have found the correct Eastes.
Ho hum - that’s all for now, folks! Gotta eat!
