Norwich – Rosary Cemetery (Edward Nursey)

Since I’ve been grounded again by the Government, I thought I’d meander around the Rosary Cemetery located near to me in Norwich, in an attempt to see what stories lie there. It might not be the most fascinating blog content, but it’ll keep me quiet for a few weeks….

This gravestone commemorates the life of Edward Nursey, who was born in 1864 and this interested me because of the reference to the Metropolitan Police.

At the 1871 census, Edward was staying (or living) with his aunt and uncle on Unthank Road in Norwich, along with an Elizabeth Nursey. She is also listed on the gravestone and I think this was Edward’s mother. He seems to have been living with another aunt and uncle at the 1881 census, on Surrey Street in Norwich. He left though to work for the Metropolitan Police and the National Archives web-site shows he started work on 12 March 1883 and was warrant number 67553. It also appears that he was briefly a detective in the Special Branch in 1887, just a few years after that had been started.

Edward is listed as giving evidence at the Old Bailey a few times, including reporting on the finding of a dead child when he was a sergeant at Hampstead police station in 1890. This was one of the most notorious crimes of the late nineteenth century and Edward was a key police witness in the trial of Mary Pearcey.

At the 1901 census, Edward was working as a sergeant in the Metropolitan Police and was lodging with Henry and Susan Carey at their house at 59, William Street in Woolwich, London. This street is still there, but is now known as Calderwood Street and the properties along it have been demolished over the last 100 years.

Edward died on 2 February 1903, aged only 39, at this point still working for the Metropolitan Police. And why he died, I don’t know, although he wasn’t killed in the line of duty.