GROSS, Mabel Susan
Mabel Susan Gross was born at Ipswich on 28 November 1872 and baptised at St Mary le Tower Church, Ipswich on 28 March 1873, daughter of Harry Gross (1826-1897), an ironmonger, and his wife Abigail Pain (1829-1922), second daughter of John Hart Pain of Stansfield, Suffolk who married at Stansfield on 15 June 1854. In 1881, Mabel was an 8-year-old, living at 7 Tavern Street, Ipswich with her parents, 55-year-old Harry and 50-year-old Abigail, with three siblings, Frederick Bertrum 17, Maude Elizabeth 15 and Arthur George 13, all born at Ipswich. Mabel was educated at the Ipswich Middle School for girls and studied at the Ipswich School of Science and Art, passing examinations in 1886 for model drawing and in 1890 won first prize for her plant drawing from nature and was still at the school in 1891 when she won a prize from South Kensington School of Art for her watercolours. She became an art teacher at Belfield House, West Road, Bowdon, Bucklow, Cheshire but by 1911, a 33 [sic] year-old private governess, back in Ipswich living at Clarence House, Norwich Road, Ipswich with her widowed mother Abigail, and sister Maude, both Mabel and Maude had taken five years off their ages. In 1939, 'on own means' staying at the Grafton Hotel, Norfolk Square, Bognor Regis, Sussex also staying at the hotel were her sisters, Henrietta and Maude. Mabel Susan Gross was of 469 Norwich Road, Ipswich when she died at the home of her sister Maude, at 7 Burlington Road, Ipswich on 2 February 1956, she was unmarried.