Clara Ada Windsor was born on 22nd March 1896 at 15 Carlton Hill, Brighton, an area renowned as among the worst slum areas in the town. The area was named in an article in The Lancet, a well-respected medical journal, in 1882 which made reference to Carlton Hill, criticising the town's poor standards of health. Clara was one of sixteen children, thirteen of whom have been positively identified, of William Thomas Windsor (1864-1926) and Emily Elizabeth Dove (1864-1934).

On the 31st March 1901 Census the large family were living at 9 Nelson Place, Brighton. The street, more accurately described as an alley, was memorialised in Graham Greene's famous book "Brighton Rock" as the home of Rose, the girl companion of the main character, the gangster Pinkie. Run-down and neglected, the street was eventually to be demolished during the general slum clearance of Brighton in the 1930s. Interestingly, Clara's father William was not listed with the family, mother Emily being listed as the head, and searches for him elsewhere have proven fruitless. It may be that William was in hospital and was not recorded properly, or was in an institution where census records often only showed initials, or he may have been serving in the military and again not listed correctly.

The next Census, containing information of 2nd April 1911, showed that the family had by that date move to 42 Carlton Row, Brighton, a severely neglected slum street in another part of the less fashionable back streets of Brighton. Clara's father William was listed as a Fruit Seller, assisted by two of his sons, William and Edward. Clara, aged 15 years old, was also employed and was recorded working  as a General Servant Domestic.

Four years after this Census, Clara married William Henry Robins in the summer of 1915. The couple welcomed their first child, son William Arthur Edward Robins, who was born on 17th September 1915 in Brighton, Sussex. Their second child, another son named John Frederick Robins, was born just over a year later in late 1916.

Having to raise her children alone, with her husband fighting in World War 1, Clara would have struggled both physically and financially. However, with her large family living in the same part of town there would have been support from them, so Clara may have continued to work outside the home to earn enough money to feed and clothe herself and her two young sons.

The fear and horror of war was constant for wives left alone on the home front, and twice Clara may have experienced the terror of reading her husbands name in the casualty lists published in national and local newspapers. William was injured in both 1917 and 1918, so Clara must have been extremely relieved to hear any rumours that an end of the war was likely in November 1918. Her joy that the deadliest conflict then known was soon to end was to be tragically brought to an end, when, just six says before the signing of the Armistice, her young son John became another victim of the worldwide 'Spanish Flu' pandemic, succumbing to the deadly disease on 6th November 1918.

War ended less than a week later on 11th November, and eventually peacetime life for the Robins family returned. William returned from service and the family eventually began to grow.  Three more children would be born to the couple over the next 14 years - Joan Clare Violet Robins was born on 1st August 1923, Albert Valentine Robins was born on 14 February 1928 and youngest child Douglas Norman Robins was born on 21st October 1932, all born in Brighton, Sussex (Details).

At the outbreak of the hostilities of the Second World War, the British government undertook a major survey of all civilians, in order to correctly issue ID cards, allocate rations and aid in conscription efforts. The 1939 Register shows the family living at 9 Elmore Road in Brighton's Tarnerland area, named after the merchant Edwin Tarner who owned property on which the estate was built. Both Clara and daughter Joan were recorded performing 'Unpaid Domestic Duties', in other words cleaning the household, feeding and raising the children and ensuring that meals were provided, not exactly menial tasks without modern labour-saving devices and conveniences.

Clara lived a long life in Brighton, outliving her husband and her daughter and all but one of her siblings. She died in Brighton on 30th April 1981 at the age of 85, leaving ten grandchildren and many great-grand children as her legacy.