Our Mysterious Good Samaritan

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You will have seen the press report on “The Dead Tell Tales” when historian Lyn Williams took us through the Hautapu Cemetery telling us of the lives of some of Cambridge’s hard-working, notable and/or colourful characters.

Of course, one of Cambridge’s more colourful characters was Mary Murphy who constantly challenged the norms of how a Victorian woman in Cambridge should behave.  (Our articles on Mrs Murphy can be read here: Murphy article and here: Murphy court article.)

When we arrived at Mary’s headstone, we were delighted to see that it had been cleaned and scrubbed.  As Mary’s daughter was never traced after Mary and her husband Patrick’s deaths, we were at a loss to know who had carried out this kind act.

Mary Murphy researcher Karen Payne with Merv Cronin

The mystery was solved a few days after the press report, when Merv Cronin called in to the Museum to say that he had cleaned the headstone after reading about Mrs Murphy in our newsletter.  She was Mary Cronin before she married, and so Merv thought there could have been a family connection way back.

We worked out that the stone had probably not been cleaned for 110 years.  For those of you who wonder how he got the stone looking so white, he told us he used Wet’n’Forget.

By Karen Payne, June 2023