The Old Congregational Church

The re-imagined story …

Tomorrow I will hang up my check at V Shop for the last time. I’m looking forward to retirement with some trepidation. My body has had enough of the hard graft but I will miss my mates and the camaraderie. Fifty-five years I’ve been ‘inside.’

I left school at 13 and worked for a local builder until I could begin my apprenticeship in the Works. Some dates stick in your mind. On March 23, 1883 I was sent to join a group of labourers excavating the burial ground in Newport Street. The old Congregational Church had been demolished almost twenty years earlier, but the burial ground had been left intact, until now when the area was required for redevelopment. We were to locate and exhume the graves for reburial in the new Swindon Cemetery on Kingshill.

It had rained for most of the previous week and the clay soil was heavy and claggy and difficult to dig. You had to use a lot of force to shift the earth but all the time I was worried about what I might be disturbing. Some of the burials were more than 60 years old, the coffins rotting away. Every time my spade made any contact, I gave out an involuntary noise, something between a cry and a yelp. The men got angry with me and told me to have some respect for the dead. I was only a lad, I hadn’t known what to expect and I feared hitting a decomposed body, I tried not to look too closely, frightened of what I might see.

Eventually the foreman gave me a different job to do while the men transferred the exhumed remains to the mortuary in the cemetery. The new grave had already been dug by the cemetery Sexton.

A few weeks later I went to pay my respects at the graveside of the Strange family whose remains had been re interred. I stood by the large plot with the tall cross and made my apologies.

The facts …

The extended Strange family were prosperous members of 18th and 19th century Swindon society. They were farmers and salt and coal merchants, grocers and drapers and they even opened the first bank in the town in 1807 Strange, Garrett, Strange and Cook.

Richard Strange junior was born in 1799, the son of banker and grocer Richard senior and his wife Mary. Richard married his cousin Martha, youngest daughter of Uncle James and Aunt Sarah Strange at Holy Rood Church on January 9, 1834. Richard farmed at Mannington Farm from 1841 until his death in 1883 when his daughter Julia took over the tenancy of the farm.

The Strange family were prominent non-conformists in the town and Martha’s father James founded the Congregational Church in Newport Street where members of the family were interred in the small burial ground. The Newport Street Church was demolished in 1866 but the burial ground remained intact for almost twenty years. However, in 1883 the graves of Richard Strange’s immediate family were exhumed for re-burial in Radnor Street Cemetery. The remains of his mother Mary who died in 1829, his father Richard who died in 1832 and his 16-year-old sister Sarah who died in 1820 along with those of Richard’s wife Martha who died in 1858 and a one-day old baby son also called Richard, were re-interred in plots E8463/4/5.

Richard Strange junior died at Mannington Farm on June 23, 1883 aged 83 and was buried in the large family plot. He left a personal estate of £4,775 1s 6d to his only daughter Julia who took over the running of the farm. Julia was buried in the family plot when she died on August 30, 1911.

A stained-glass window is dedicated to Julia in St Augustine’s Church, Rodbourne. The dedication reads ‘a devoted worker in this Parish.’

Photograph published courtesy of Duncan and Mandy Ball.

Coming next …

The terracotta grave markers – The bluebells grow in hidden places in the cemetery, in the hedges and in the long grass. There are still primroses nestling round the headstones, but the daffodils are finished, withered and creeping back into the earth.

Published on the Radnor Street Cemetery blog Thursday May 2nd, 2019.

The nurses call me Edie

more bluebells

The re-imagined story …

They’ll be along in a little while. I see them most days, the young man and the little girl. Sometimes they walk past me but sometimes they sit next to me on the bench. I like those days. The young man exchanges a few pleasantries, comments on the weather, that kind of thing. The little girl only talks to him. My, she’s a chatterbox. She tells him about her friends and about school and who got told off that day. She has a nasty cough, mind. some days I think she doesn’t wear enough clothes. She never wears a coat in the winter, but then the young man takes off his greatcoat and puts it around her shoulders while they sit on the bench.

bluebells

But today it is summer and the sun shines on the cemetery and warms the cold earth. Yesterday she collected some flowers from one of the graves. He gently explained that she couldn’t take them and that someone had placed them there as a token of their love for the person who had died. She said she wanted to take some flowers to her mother so they picked some harebells that grew by the cemetery gate.

harebells

Here they come now. She is skipping alongside him, holding his hand. He is smiling. There is something very familiar about that smile. He reminds me of someone, but I can’t remember who. My thoughts are so muddled these days. The nurses call me Edie but I don’t think that’s my name. Tom never called me Edie. After the children came along he called me ‘ma’ like they did. I’m sure my name isn’t Edie though.

more bluebells

They’re not stopping at the bench today. That’s a shame. I like listening to their conversation. Never mind, there’s always tomorrow.

bluebells

Evening is drawing in. Doris will be along soon. She is never far away. She knows where to find me. It’s funny, I never forget her name. Here she comes now.

“Did you see them Ma?”

“Yes. They were along earlier.”

“Did Charlie speak to you?”

“No, not today. But he did smile. Do you know him then?”

“Of course I do Ma. It’s our Charlie and little Vera.”

“He doesn’t recognise me. Why doesn’t he recognise me Doris?”

“It was a long time ago Ma. You’ve changed a lot, got older. He doesn’t recognise me either.”

“I’ll remind him who I am tomorrow. They’ll be along again tomorrow.”

“Come on Ma, it’s beginning to get dark. We should make a move. Take my arm.”

I lean heavily on her, but she never complains. She’s a good girl. She’ll make some lucky man a lovely wife. I wonder why she hasn’t got married by now. I wish I could remember these things.

The nurses call me Edie, but I’m sure that’s not my name.

The facts …

Edith Emily was born in 1876 in Gorse Hill, the daughter of John Painter, a sawyer at the GWR Works, and his wife Hannah. She married Thomas Gray, a steam engine fitter in the Works, in 1895 and at the time of the 1901 census the couple were living at 263 Cricklade Road, Gorse Hill with their two children Florence aged 4 and one year old Charles. They would go on to have a total of 11 children, the last born in 1919, a daughter Gwendoline, who died before her first birthday. She is buried in a public grave with six others including Hilda Mary Chord, 11 months and one year old Ernest John Lovegrove who both died in December 1894.

Two other daughters died in the 1920s. Winifred Alice was buried on February 5, 1920 aged 16. Doris, who appears as the youngest child on the 1901 census aged just two months old, died at the family home, 16 Haydon Street in 1929. She was buried on June 18, with her sister in plot C1024. She was aged 18 years.

On the 1939 List Thomas and Edith are living at 13 Carlton Street with their daughter Irene, who works as a domestic servant and son Ronald, a van driver for a Wine and Spirit Merchant.

Thomas died in November 1941 at Carlton Street and was buried on December 3 with his two daughters in plot C1024. He was 67 years old.

Edith Emily Gray died on Christmas Day 1959 at Roundways, a psychiatric hospital in Devizes. The hospital had opened in 1851 when it was called the Wiltshire County Lunatic Asylum, changing its name to the Wiltshire County Mental Hospital in 1922 and eventually Roundways. Edith was 83 years old. She was buried on December 31, in plot C1024, with her husband and two daughters. This is a public or pauper’s grave and the Gray family members are buried with two others.

Thomas and Edith’s eldest son was Charles Herbert, born in 1899. He served with the 6th Wilts regiment from the outbreak of the First World War and was discharged from the army on March 15, 1919. Sadly his records are among those destroyed during bombing in the Second World War, but we do know what action the 6th Wilts served in and that Charles was most probably with them.

The 6th Wilts embarked for the Western Front in July 1915 as part of the 19th Division and were involved in action at Loos in September of that year. After the attack they returned to Neuve Chapelle for the remainder of 1915.

In 1916 they were engaged in training at Albert in preparation for the Somme offensive, during which they suffered 380 casualties in two months.

In 1917 the 6th Battalion saw action on the Ypres salient, Messines Ridge and Passendaele Ridge. They became the 6th (Royal Wiltshire) Yeomanry Battalion following more heavy losses.

Throughout the last year of the war the 6th (Service) Battalion were heavily engaged. They sustained heavy losses and despite reinforcements were eventually disbanded, most of the men being sent to the 2nd Battalion. They were eventually disbanded in Devizes in 1919.

During the September quarter of 1920 Charles married Ada J. Edginton and the coupled lived at 14 Haydon Street. Charles died on April 4, 1921 at Salisbury Hospital. Unfortunately we do not have any funds for research so we are unable to buy a death certificate to confirm his cause of death. However, his name appears in the Commonwealth War Grave Commission records and he has an official CWGC headstone on his grave so he must have died from the effects of his military service.*

Charles was buried on April 9, 1921 in plot B2321 in a public grave he shares with two others.

The birth of Charles and Ada’s daughter, Vera Dorothy Joan was registered during the June quarter of 1921, so probably around the time of Charles’s death.

Vera died in January 1926 at the Isolation Hospital. She was four years old. She is buried in Radnor Street Cemetery in plot C569, a public grave which she shares with eight others, including Anthony Williams a two day old baby, Dorothy Maud just 23 days old and Charles Edmund Lewis aged 16 months.

*Paul Cook kindly obtained the death certificate. Charles Herbert Gray died from Pulmonary Tuberculosis.

Gray CH

History of the 6th Wilts taken from The Wardrobe – Home of the Infantry Regiments of Berkshire & Wiltshire.

Coming next …

The Old Congregational Church – A few weeks later I went to pay my respects at the graveside of the Strange family whose remains had been re interred. I stood by the large plot with the tall cross and made my apologies.

published on Radnor Street Cemetery blog Thursday, April 25, 2019.

34 Faringdon Road

The re-imagined story …

I quite like what they’ve done to the place, especially the wallpaper in the front parlour. I could never have afforded that when we lived there.

The thing I notice most is how clean everywhere is. In my day it was a constant battle against the filth pumped out of the Works and the coal smuts from the trains. If the wind changed direction the washing would be covered in grime when I took it off the line.

I preferred our home in Box, but it was only a small village in those days. There were more opportunities for the boys in Swindon, so we moved here. It was a dirty, noisy place back in the 60s but the people were good and kind. When John died more than two hundred people lined the roads from Faringdon Street to St Mark’s.

I like to pop back to the house occasionally. It’s open to the public now, you know. Who would have thought it?

The facts …

Jane Bennet married John Hall at New Monkland, Lanarkshire in June 1840 when John was working as an engine driver with the Wishaw and Coltness Railway in Scotland.

At the time of the 1851 census the family was living in Box, Wiltshire but by the next census ten years later they were at 1 Faringdon Street.

John died on Tuesday, February 29, 1876 as the result of a grisly accident on the railways. At the inquest his son James gave the following evidence:

‘James Hall, son of deceased, said:- My father was 65 years of age last August. On Tuesday morning, about 25 minutes after two, I was at the station with him as his stoker to pilot the up mails out. We were there in case of the other engine breaking down. There were four coaches in front of our engine, which we were going to push on to the mails. Whilst waiting, the gauge lamp went out, and my father went to the front of the engine to light it by the other lamp. As he was returning along the side of the engine the signalman signalled us to come on, and I blew the whistle and started just as my father had another step to take to get back, and, in fact, had his hand on the weather board. He was walking along the side of the engine. As he was about to step on the foot plate his foot slipped and he fell, his right leg going between the outside connecting rod and the wheel. I had only moved about a yard. The rod brought him up again against the splasher, causing his leg to be jammed and the flesh torn off. The first I knew of his position was my father calling out, ”Stop Jim,” and I stopped immediately. I got down and found he was fixed inside the rod, and he was terribly torn about. It took a considerable time to get him out. He was taken to the hospital at once.’

John died from the shock about four o’clock the same day. As the report said: ‘The injuries were sufficient to kill anyone, the flesh being taken off to the bone.’

The funeral at St Mark’s took place on the following Sunday, a wet and windy day attended by ‘a large number of the inhabitants, many engine drivers and stokers from various parts of the Great Western Railway. We understand that free passes were issued to all such drivers and stokers as desired to attend the funeral, and in this way over ninety of deceased’s fellow workmen were enabled to attend his funeral to pay their last respects to his memory,’ according to the Swindon Advertiser.

Jane outlived her husband by ten years. She died on January 22, 1886 at the home in Faringdon Street where she had lived for more than twenty five years. She was buried in Radnor Street Cemetery in plot A1047, a public grave, with Jane Humphreys, the wife of Alfred Augustus Humphreys of 9 Bangor Terrace, Jennings Street, who had died the previous year.

Faringdon Street was later renumbered and renamed Faringdon Road. Today the Hall’s former home is 34 Faringdon Road, the Railway Village Museum.

In 2016 the Railway Village Museum was transferred from Swindon Borough Council to the Mechanics’ Institution Trust and prior to the Covid crisis was open on selected weekends throughout the year. Hopefully the museum will soon be able to announce a renewed timetable.

Coming next …prior

No Place Like Home – Half way up Victoria Road, behind the bus stop called The Brow, stands an empty and derelict property and so it has been for several years.

Published in Radnor Street Cemetery blog Thursday, April 11, 2019.