The 'informant' of James Cooke's death was Matilda Dye, a 50-year-old laundress, who lived nearby at 3 Wigston Street with her husband and two children.

The relationship of Matilda Dye with the Cooke family may turn out to be of interest.

In 1871 a certain Nellie Dye (3) had been living, not with her family but with an unknown woman, next door to one of James' sons, Charles. On this occasion she was recorded as a 'nurse child', a label sometimes given to illegitimate children fostered out for payment. By 1881 the same Nellie Dye (now 13) was living with Richard Cooke, another of James' sons, being recorded as his daughter. Nellie was born in 1867 and married George Tebbutt in 1886. A marriage certificate would probably be required to find the name of her father.