Sarah Ann Little

An inked inscription verso in a period hand identifies the sitter as ‘Sarah A. Little’ and gives the date, 18 September 1875.

Sarah Ann Little appears on the 1871 census living in Chipping Lane, Tetbury, Gloucestershire, with her parents and four younger sisters. Her father Thomas Little was a ‘Carpenter (employing 2 men).’

Born in Tetbury in 1855, Sarah was 16 years old at the time of the census, so she would have been about 20 years old when this photograph was taken.

In 1884 she married Ralph Teesdale Turner, an Assistant Draper (1881 census) who was ten years her junior.

The couple appear on the 1891 census living with their three children at 44 Palace Square, Upper Norwood, South London. Ralph gave his profession as ‘Hosier, Assistant.’ Sarah gave her profession as ‘Apartment letting.’ The household on the night of the census included three lodgers and a boarder.

Ralph died at 44 Palace Square on 29 June 1896, aged only 32. He left effects valued at £265.

I can find no trace of Sarah in later records. In 1901 daughter Alice, now aged 12, was a pupil at the London Orphan Asylum in Watford, Hertfordshire.

An inked inscription verso in a period hand identifies the sitter as ‘Sarah A. Little’ and gives the date, 18 September 1875.

Photographed by James Clark of Tetbury in Gloucestershire.