She was baptised 20 April 1872 in Stanford le Hope.
GRO birth reference - 1872 June Qtr Orsett 4a 175.
Mary Ann Martha Ellingford worked on a farm in Little Thurrock and became pregnant with Rose Ann who she had in Wheeler’s Cottage, the family home on 5 April 1896. No-one ever knew who Rose Ann’s father was. Mary Ann Martha left the baby with her sister Florence and upped sticks and went to Worcs to do fruit picking. Mrs Laundry & her husband had a fish shop in the Broadway Little Thurrock, had just lost a son and took a shine to Rose Ann who by all accounts was a beautiful baby with jet black hair. Florence was only 18 at this time & still unmarried so she agreed that Mrs Laundry could adopt the baby. I don’t know whether this was a legal adoption or whether they just let her have the baby.
Mary Ann Martha returned to Little Thurrock a year later, pregnant with her second child William David who was born in Wheelers Cottage on 11 October 1897. It is not certain, but it is believed that a man by the name of William Stokes was the child’s father. This time Mary Ann Martha returned to Worcestershire with the baby.
When her daughter Rose Ann was about 10 Mary Ann Martha returned to Little Thurrock with Bill Stokes and tried to abduct her from Arthur Street school which she was attending. The police were called and Mary Ann Martha & Bill returned to Worcs empty handed.
Mary Ann Martha died on 21 September 1947 in a caravan in the grounds of her son William David's cottage in Mamble RD, Worcestershire. She died of myocardial failure, bronchitis and hypertension. Her son W. D. Ellinford of Almshouse Cottage, Mamble registered the death.