Coronation Street Wiki
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Ralph Makepiece was the troublesome son of Alfred and Ivy Makepiece. His family was the first to inhabit 11 Coronation Street after it was built in 1902.

At five years of age Ralph moved into No.11 with his family having been approved for the property due to his father's role as an engineer at Hardcastle's Mill. His father was killed by TB in 1908 and since then the family began to struggle like never before, especially following the arrival of grandmother Hetty Harris in 1910 who dumped herself on the Makepieces offering little in way of support. When Ralph was caught stealing chickens from the market at age thirteen he was sent away to a reform centre. Ralph had always been Ivy's favourite child and in his absence she grew resentful of her mother, blaming her for his need to steal, and began to poison her tea with arsenic which took its toll and killed her within two months.

During his three years at the reform centre, Ralph was knocked around quite a bit and taught to do manual labour, as well as to read and write. He returned to the street in 1913 and was more troubled than ever before. He attempted to force himself onto Alice Buck but her brother Larry managed to put an end to it by smashing Ralph over the head with a wooden shuttle. Nobody was around to stop him a second time when he raped Betty Cog from Mawdsley Street. At some point Ralph began living with a teacher on Jubilee Terrace. In 1914, Ralph marched off to war alongside his brother Frank Makepiece after signing up to the Lancashire Fusiliers. Neither of the boys returned and Ivy learned that Ralph had been gunned down over the Somme in 1916 while she was already grieving Frank who had been killed by an exploding shell while recovering in hospital.

Ralph left behind an illegitimate son, Trevor Cog, following his rape of Betty.

Ralph first appeared in Daran Little and Bill Hill's "Weatherfield Life", published in 1992. Other information is derived from Little's follow-up book, "Around the Coronation Street Houses".
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