It was all anyone was talking about on the factory floor the following day – the murder of Fanny Hunter. All the girls were shocked but not so much that Fanny had been murdered, but that her mild mannered boyfriend Walter White had done it.
Everyone branded Fanny a good time girl and we all know what they meant by that. But actually she wasn’t. She liked a laugh and a joke and yes a drink or two sometimes, but I always felt there was a sadness about Fanny, a lonely side to the exuberant young woman.
Some said she had it coming, but not me. I was fond of Fanny and I’d never liked that boyfriend of hers. He was always very polite and friendly but I didn’t like the way he was around Fanny, always standing too close to her as if keeping others away. He was possessive and jealous – never liked her talking to other people. Creepy and vaguely menacing.
Fanny was always attracted to the wrong sort. She was a kind, big hearted girl and that’s how I shall remember her.
Goddard Arms Hotel published courtesy of Local Studies, Swindon Central Library
The facts …
Two young women each murdered by a sweetheart ten years apart have some striking similarities but a very different response from people in the town where they lived.
Swindonians were shocked by the murder of 19 year old Esther Swinford in 1903 but when Frances Hunter was shot by her sweetheart in one of the outbuildings at the Goddard Arms Hotel they were shocked but for quite quite different reasons.
Walter James White was told that Frances had previously been in a relationship with a married man. He went to her workplace at the Goddard Arms Hotel and challenged her.
In his statement he said that Frances had confessed she had disgraced him and she hoped that God would forgive her. “I told her she would never deceive anybody else as I was going to kill her.”
White was found standing over the young woman’s body, a revolver in his hand. He coolly advised the manager of the hotel to send for the police.
White’s defence counsel pleaded that White was in “such a perturbed state he was not responsible.” A petition signed by 4,000 Swindonians, including the mayor and deputy mayor was sent to the home secretary pleading for mercy, but White was found guilty and executed at Winchester prison on June 15, 1914.
Frances lies buried in an unmarked, pauper’s grave in Radnor Street Cemetery. There was no funeral fund for Frances, no impressive memorial on her grave site.
Esther Swinford’s story is well known here in Swindon. Frances’s story seldom gets a mention.
Esther Swinford published courtesy of James Turner and Local Studies, Swindon Central Library
‘I watched him enter the pub from my seat beside the fireplace. What did she see in him? My sister said he was handsome in a dark and brooding fashion and that I was jealous.
She read too many romantic novels. Where she saw dark and brooding I saw surly and ill tempered, but she was right about one thing; I was jealous.
I was in love with Hetty and had been for several years, since she first began working at The Ship. She was pretty and vivacious with a kind word for everyone. Mr Matthews said she was one of the best barmaids he had ever employed. She was like one of the family, he used to say.
I watched Palmer walk over to the bar. He looked furtively around the near empty pub. I inclined my head in acknowledgement. I didn’t want to encourage him over to the vacant seat beside me.
I hadn’t seen him in many months. Rumour had it that he had left for Canada nursing a broken heart after Hetty broke off their engagement.
My sister said she’d heard he’d spent Hetty’s savings, all the money she had put away for their future home together, on other pastimes.
But he was obviously back now.
I watched as Hetty appeared behind the bar. She seemed unsurprised to see him and welcomed him with a polite smile, the smile she showed all her customers, the smile she always gave me. Nothing special.
He ordered a bottle of Bass and a cigar. She placed his drink in front of him and went out the back to get the cigar.
I watched as they exchanged a few words. I couldn’t hear what was said, but suddenly I noticed her expression change. The sound of the gunshot reverberated around the pub. He placed the gun on the bar.
I watched as he took a long, slow draught of beer. He lit his cigar and enjoyed a leisurely smoke while all hell broke out around him.
After his arrest they found a photograph of Hetty in his pocket. He had written across the bottom ‘the curse of my life.’
The Ship Inn, Westcott Place published courtesy of Local Studies, Swindon Central Library
The facts …
Esther, also known as Hester or Hetty, was born in Fairford, Gloustershire in 1883, the daughter of farm labourer Edwin Swinford and his wife Alice. By 1901 she had moved to Swindon where she worked as a barmaid at the Ship Inn for Mrs Isabella Groves. The following year the widowed Mrs Groves married Walter Ernest Matthews and together they continued to run the large establishment in Westcott Place.
It was Mr Matthews who paid for the funeral expenses while local people donated towards a memorial. A large cross stands on Hetty’s grave. The inscription reads:
In Memory of Esther Swinford who was the victim of the shooting tragedy in Swindon on Sep 18th 1903. Aged 19 years
“In the midst of life we are in death.”
Cut into the stone is a cascade of passion flowers. Is this how Hetty’s death should be remembered, as a crime of passion, like something out of a romantic novel?
Hetty’s funeral took place on September 22. She was buried in plot A760 which she shares with one other who died in 1889; a railwayman by the name of George Frederick Palmer, could this just be a macabre coincidence?
Edward Richard Palmer hanged for the crime on November 17, 1903 in Devizes gaol.
The memorial was repaired and restored in 2009 by Highworth Memorials after a project by James Turner.
Next week I shall be in Wiltshire so I will make a visit to Swindon. I will be working at Charlton Park, the home of the Earl and Countess of Suffolk. Lady Suffolk wants a chaise longue reupholstered and some new curtains for the nursery before the baby is born in the summer. On March 2 I will attend the funeral of Mrs Matthews.
How fortunate am I to have such an interesting occupation? Last week I was working on the stage curtains at the London Palladium. Now I am packing my suitcase and setting off for Charlton Park to work for a peer of the realm. And it’s all thanks to Mrs Matthews.
I was born in Stratton St Margaret on December 28, 1884, the youngest of six children. My mother died before I was a year old and my father couldn’t continue working at Cat’s Brain Farm and look after us, so we all ended up in the Swindon and Highworth Union Workhouse. That set the pattern for my childhood. A few months at home with my father and then back in the Workhouse when things got too much for him. As a child it didn’t seem too bad to me. I suppose I didn’t know any different.
I was ten-year-old when sweeping changes took place in local government. A change in the law allowed women to sit on the Poor Law Board of Guardians and the effect was felt immediately by the inmates, especially the women and children.
Mrs Williams, one of four women to join the Board of Guardians, arranged for the acquisition of a new mangle for the laundry, which considerably eased the workload of the woman who worked there. And the older girls like my sisters Maud and Enid received new nightclothes, an item of clothing that had never been reviewed once they grew out of their childhood garments.
But it was Mrs Matthews who took me under her wing. Not just me, but all the children in the workhouse who were fast approaching school leaving age. She suggested I might be part of a new boarding out scheme where children were fostered by families in Swindon and the local villages. It sounded a nice idea but I didn’t want to leave the life I had grown used to.
Well she didn’t give up on me, even though I was proving to be an awkward child. But then she was used to awkward children, she had more than ten of her own.
When I look back I don’t know how she managed to give so much of her time to the Workhouse children, and to me in particular. Mrs Matthews supervised two family businesses, a tailors and a newsagents and coped with a difficult husband who had twice declared himself bankrupt. It was rumoured he was a drunkard but no one said as much within her hearing. He died in 1905 found drowned in a stream at Westlecott after wandering away from the family home when no one was supervising him. I only learned of this much later. It must have been heart-breaking for her.
Mrs Matthews kept a keen eye on my schoolwork and when it was noted that I was proving to be an accomplished seamstress she suggested I might like to earn my living by my needlework. I couldn’t have anticipated what she might have in mind.
On my fourteenth birthday she collected me from the Workhouse. Mr. Arkell, the carter, drove us to the train station in Old Town and at Swindon Junction we boarded the train to Paddington, an adventure for a child who had seldom left the confines of the Workhouse.
Mrs Matthews had arranged for me to have an interview at the prestigious firm of Burnetts, an upholstering business in Kingly Street, off Oxford Street. I presented some examples of my work and sat a short test and Mr Edwards, the manager, offered me an apprenticeship on the spot.
How fortunate am I to have such an interesting occupation? Last week I was working on the stage curtains at the London Palladium. Now I am packing my suitcase and setting off for the country estate of the Countess of Suffolk.
I loved Mrs Matthews. Not in a sentimental way. She never tried to be my mother. To be honest she could be quite fierce, not the affectionate type at all. She ruled and dominated her own family, including her wayward sons and refused to be intimidated by the powerful men on the Board of Guardians, and when it came to the neglected and vulnerable children in the workhouse, she was fearless. I have a lot to thank her for, and tomorrow I will pay my respects at her funeral.
The facts …
When Maria Matthews died in 1940 the local press reported that she was the first woman to serve on the Poor Law Board of Guardian but in reality, she was one of four trailblazing women so to do.
The Local Government Act of 1894 brought in reforms that allowed women to serve on parish and district councils. These reforms extended to the election of the Poor Law Board of Guardians and for the first time women were eligible to be guardians.
Elections took place in December 1894 and when the Poor Law Guardians met at the Stratton St. Margaret Workhouse on 2 January 1895 the names of four women were among their numbers.
Maria was the wife of master tailor Jesse Matthews. Together the couple ran two businesses, a tailor’s shop in Regent Street and a newsagent’s business in Fleet Street. Jesse had both a drink and gambling addiction and in 1886 was declared bankrupt. Maria headed their large family and business concerns alone after Jesse’s death in 1905.
The funeral took place on March 2, 1940 of Mrs Maria Matthews who died at her home in Kent Road aged 97 years old. The Rev Joseph Coombes conducted the service at Mrs Matthews’ former home and afterwards at Radnor Street Cemetery. Sadly, she lies buried in an unmarked grave.
I have recently been contacted by Shelley Hughes, a descendant of Maria’s, who supplied some of the above information.
Shelley writes: “I found Maria living with her Mapson (Mother’s brother) aunt and uncle in Wootton Bassett when she was just eight years old in 1841. I believe she was sent to live with them after her father died in 1838. Maria’s older brother (age 10), younger sister (age 6) and their grandmother continued to live with her mother in Cirencester. I just discovered on the 1841 census that Jesse Matthews and his family lived just a few houses away from Maria and her aunt and uncle. The age difference was considerable at the time with Maria age 8 and Jesse age 17, but they must have known each other.”
And in addition to this extra information, Shelley has sent me another fantastic photograph of Maria, Jesse and their family taken in around 1893, just a year before her election onto the Poor Law Board of Guardians.
Have I ever told you about Sheldon K. Goodman and the Cemetery Club? I feel sure I must have mentioned him at some point.
Sheldon established the Cemetery Club website in May 2013 sharing his belief that cemeteries are not only beautiful places but an important historical repository, as he calls them ‘museums of people.’
A City of Wesminster Tour Guide, Sheldon has also worked with the National Achives, the BBC, Pride in London and the National Maritime Museum and he has visted most of the cemeteries on my wish list and some I’d never even heard of before.
When the Covid crisis shut us all down Sheldon transferred to online presentations, developing the short video pieces he has long been sharing on social media to full length talks and this week I joined his virtual tour of Highgate Cemetery. This is one cemetery I have long wanted to visit, but for various reasons have never managed to get to.
Sheldon took his audience on a virtual walk through this spectacular cemetery, introducing us to residents old and more recently arrived. With videos and supplementary images and information, I can well appreciate just how many hours of work go into producing one of these virtual walks and talks – and that’s without the palaver of ‘zooming.’
Now that Covid restrictions have been relaxed Sheldon is getting back into ‘live’ cemetery walks and has a busy programme planned. One of these days I will get to see him proper, but for the time being I shall continue to follow him online and I am busy buying tickets for the next two virtual cemetery visits – Myths & Monsters Saturday September 18 at 7 pm and Brookwood on Saturday October 2nd 7pm. Visit the Cemetery Club website for further details.
Never let it be said the Radnor Street Cemetery team never go that extra mile to bring you an interesting story?
On a recent trip to the Orkney Islands, Noel took a wander around the churchyard at St. Magnus Cathedral, Kirkwall, where this headstone caught his eye.
I popped the name Robert Yorston into Google search and was amazed to discover a heap of information thanks to the family history research of Ray Millar (it’s never usually that easy).
As an introduction to his family history page Ray tells how he began his research in 2004. His family originated from the Orkney Islands before emigrating to Australia, New Zealand and Canada, so possibly Ray lives in one of these countries.
His work on Robert Yorston is pretty extensive and I hope he will not mind me using it here.
Ray includes two newspaper reports. The first published in the Rosshire Journal of December 24, 1887 following Robert’s 100th birthday.
Mr. Robert Yorston, a burgess of Kirkwall, who recently completed the 100th year of his age, was visited by Provost Reid, Bailies Peace and Irvine, and his minister, the Rev. David Webster, of the United Presbyterian Church, the other day, and was presented by the provost, on behalf of certain well-wishers, with a purse of sovereigns.
The deputation found the old man in bed, but quite able to sit up and receive his friends. He suffers no pain, is in full possession of all his faculties except hearing, which is a little impaired ; and though feeble is able with some help to leave his bed daily, and sit for a while in his old arm chair.
He is quite contented and happy, his mind clear, and his memory fairly good. On the day which closed his 100th year, Robert had shaved himself, when his face looked clean and smooth like that of a young man, with not a wrinkle on it.
Robert Yorston was born in Kirkwall on the 10th December, 1786. His father and grandfather belonged to the island of Rousay, and are said to havedescended from one of three brothers who, centuries ago, came from Denmark, when two of them settled in Orkney, while the third went to the neighbourhood of Aberdeen.
When upwards of 60 years of age Robert suffered from a prolonged and mysterious weakness, which confined him to bed about a couple of years, but he gradually recovered, and has lived to see another generation of his fellows pass away.
The second account is taken from the Australian Town and Country Journal Sat. 8th Sept. 1888
CENTENARIANS.-Robert Yorston, the oldest man in Orkney (Scotland), died at Kirkwall recently. He was born on December 10,1786, so that he was within a few months of completing his 102nd year.
For the last year or so he was almost continuously confined to bed; and during the past few weeks he had grown so weak that he rarely spoke to anyone. Up to his 100th year, however, his memory was wonderfully good and he had a large store of local anecdotes regarding time and people long passed away.
Mr. Yorston had twelve of a family, six of whom survive him; the oldest being about 60 years of age. It may also be of interest to note that though Mr. Yorston’s father died when a comparatively young man, his mother reached the age of 90 years.
The inscription on the headstone reads:
In memory of Robert Yorston who died 8th July 1888 aged 101 and a half years. Also his wife Elizabeth Gorie who died 6th August 1867 aged 75 years. Also their daughter Mary Yorston who died 7th May 1911 aged 90 years.
With kind thanks to Ray Millar whose research into his Orkney family can be found here.
Considering Gloucester is pretty much on my doorstep I don’t know why I’ve never visited the cathedral before. I emerged from College Court, the medieval way once called Craft’s Lane and Ironmongers Row, to arrive at St Michael’s Gate, a pedestrian gateway in the former precinct wall of the Benedictine Abbey of St. Peter, now the Cathedral. Today the Cathedral Green is a pleasant garden with street furniture telling the Cathedral’s story. Originally a graveyard within the Abbey grounds, from the 1920s until 2018 this area was a car park!
The Cathedral itself is stunning, particularly the cloisters which were used during the filming of the Harry Potter films. But of course it was the memorials I had come to see, and there were plenty of them.
In 2015 during investigative work as part of the 10 year Project Pilgrim, one of the ledgerstones in the north transept gave up its unexpected secret. When the stone was lifted it revealed through a hole a brick built family vault below, complete with intact coffins.
The ledger stone records the date of death of Benjamin and Elizabeth Hyett, and tragically eight of their children.
Sarah 1692 0
William 1706 26
Mary 1712 23
John 1682 4
Mary 1682 22 days
Elizabeth 1683 2
Robert 1683 8 months
Joseph 1686 5
Benjamin Hyett was a lawyer who served as Deputy Clerk of the Peace for Gloucestershire from 1673-78 and then as Clerk of the Peace from 1678-89. The Assizes and Quarter Sessions took place in Booth Hall, the old Shire Hall in Westgate Street. His duties would have been to officiate at the Court of Assizes, prepare indictments and record the proceedings. He may also have been required to give legal advice to the justices along with a number of other duties.
Benjamin married Elizabeth Morwent, the daughter of Joseph Morwent of Tetbury, Gent and his wife Mary, on August 10, 1674 at St Mary’s Church, Tetbury.
It is likely the family lived in the Westgate Street area of Gloucester, within reach of Benjamin’s place of work and close to the church of St Michael’s where they had five of their children baptised between 1677-1685; Robert, Sara, Elizabeth, John and Joseph.
In his Will made on March 7, 1707 Benjamin mentions four children, the sole survivors from a family of twelve. He makes his eldest son Charles executor of his Will and leaves him all his freehold estate. To his son Benjamin he leaves £500 and to his daughter Elizabeth £1,500. He leaves his daughter Mary an annuity of £50 a year.
Benjamin was buried in the vault beneath the north transept on March 22, 1711, joining his wife Elizabeth and seven of their children (Mary, mentioned in her father’s Will, died in 1712), his father-in-law Joseph Morwent who died in 1704 aged 82 and his brother-in-law (Elizabeth’s brother) who died in 1675 aged 20 years old. In 1731 the vault was opened again for the interment of Edward James, the husband of Benjamin and Elizabeth’s daughter, and their only son Thomas James who died aged 9 years old. Elizabeth James died in 1739 aged 51, and presumably this was the last time the vault was opened until the investigations 276 years later.
I shall be returning with more stories from Gloucester Cathedral.
As part of the Heritage Open Days event this September, I will be conducting short, guided churchyard walksat St. Mary’s Church, Lydiard Park. These will take place at 2pm and 3pm Saturday September 11 (today) and Sunday September 12 (tomorrow) and at the same time next weekend Saturday 18 and Sunday 19 September.
This memorial, just inside the churchyard gates, records the burial of Jonas Clarke who died on March 31, 1862 aged 74. The names of his two young grandchildren Cordelia Ann Carey and her brother Jonas Carey are also mentioned although they are not recorded in the burial registers so it is possible they were buried elsewhere.
Jonas was born in Minety in 1787 where he spent his early adult life. He married Elizabeth Fitchew in 1816 but the marriage proved to be unsuccessful and by 1818 he had entered into a relationship with Alice Pinnell. The couple had seven children but had to wait more than thirty years for the death of Elizabeth before they could marry.
Their children were baptised at All Saints’ Church, Oaksey and St Michael’s, Brinkworth and took the names Clarke Pinnell. Various Clarke Pinnell marriages took place at St. Mary’s, Lydiard Tregoze including a double wedding on May 4, 1841 when Sarah Clark Pinnell married Thomas Hall, a yeoman from Broad Blunsdon and her sister Jane married Francis Carey, a yeoman, also from Broad Blunsdon. The girls’ parents Jonas and Alice were eventually able to marry at St. Mary’s in 1853.
Jonas Clarke, farmed at Wick Farm just beyond the entrance to Lydiard Park, next to the Rectory, from about 1839 until his death in 1862, when his son Jonas Jnr took over. Farm accounts dated 1869 reveal that during the month of June, Wick Farm produced an average of three cheeses a day, over 90 in total during that month. In October of the same year there were 110 cheeses in the cheese room weighing over three tons.
The area around St. Mary’s church and Lydiard House was developed in the 1980s and 90s when street names were often taken from ancient field names. Two fields on Wick Farm called Green Down and the Green Down Mead were adopted for the new Secondary School. (The school has since changed its name to Lydiard Park Academy). The Prinnells estate takes its name from one of the Wick Farm fields, as does the area known as Freshbrook.
This magnificent cross is a memorial to members of the Dibsdall family.
Susan Dibsdall is the first member of the family to be buried here. Susan was baptised on November 8, 1809 one of James and Susanna Pope’s six children to be baptised in the parish church at Sherborne, Dorset. Susan married Thomas Dibsdall at the parish church in Bedminster on May 13, 1830.
At the time of the 1841 census the couple were living in Cheap Street, Sherborne withtheir seven children where Thomas worked as a smith. By 1851 they were living in the Parade, Sherborne where the couple’s eldest three sons, Thomas, Charles and William, worked alongside their father as smiths. The family now comprised 11 children, but Thomas would die shortly after the census was taken that year.
In 1861 Susan was living at Green Hill with her two youngest sons Henry and Godfrey. Ten years later she was working as a housekeeper for Mary Thomas, described on the census as ‘Lady’.
By 1881 she had left Sherborne, her home for more than 60 years, to live with her son Woodford Dean Dibsdall. Woodford, who was married with his own large family, had lived for a few years in Camberwell. It is thought he moved to Swindon and a job in the Works in about 1874.
The Dibsdall family have a double size burial plot in Radnor Street Cemetery and a large memorial. Edward Dean Dibsdalldied in the University Hospital London aged 19 and was buried on April 30, 1902 alongside his grandmother Susan in plot E7039. Ellen, Woodford’s wife, died in 1920 aged 81 years and Woodford in July 1928 aged 83. They are buried together in plot E7040.
Susan Dibsdall – Personal Estate £966 3rd August.
The will as contained in Writings A and B of Susan Dibsdall late of 8 Vilett Street New Swindon in the County of Wilts Widow who died 1st January 1882 at 8 Vilett Street was proved at the Principal Registry by Thomas Dean Dibsdall of 28 Lambeth road Lambeth in the County of Surrey Blacksmith Henry Pope Dibsdall of 22 Denmark Street St Giles in the Fields in the County of Middlesex Carpenter and Woodford Dean Dibsdall of 8 Vilett Street Engine Fitter the Sons the Executors
Dibsdall, Woodford Dean of 4 Sheppard Street, Swindon, Wiltshire died 18 July 1928 Probate Salisbury 20 August to Arthur George Dibsdall railway works inspector Effects £1089 12s 4d.
The last serious act of vandalism to take place in Radnor Street Cemetery happened across one weekend several years ago.
A break-in at the chapel saw windows smashed, including the window above the door. The intruders lit a fire in the vestry, the small room off the chapel, using a box of documents stored there.
The documents were ‘Form of application for permission to erect or restore a memorial’ and included the name and address of the owner of the grave and how much the memorial cost, invaluable information lost in the fire. One rare, surviving document includes the details of the Boucher family grave, naming the stonemason, the dimensions of the memorial and the inscription.
‘In loving memory of George Boucher died 8th July 1915 aged 61 years also Mary Boucher died 25th February 1943 aged 88 also Alice and Ethel their beloved daughters.
The owner of the grave was Annie Elizabeth Boucher who lived at 30 Swindon Road. The grave plot is C484 and the memorial cost in total £3 10s. Alice died in 1897 aged 16. Ethel died in 1956 aged 70.
George and Mary Anne were originally from Herefordshire where they married in 1877. They both came from farming families and were neighbours living in Cublington.
By 1881 they had moved to Swindon and lived in 19 Thomas Street, Rodbourne. George worked as a Machine Man in E & M Shop in the Works.
Ten years later and George was working as a machine manager in the Iron Works. The couple had seven children and were still living in Rodbourne at 54 Linslade Street.
By 1901 the family were living at 111 Linslade Street and the elder children had left home. Emily, aged 22 was working as a parlour maid while Ethel, 15 was a machinist in the shirt factory round the corner from Linslade Street.
At the time of the 1911 census the couple had just two children living at home in Linslade Street. William had followed his father into the Works as an engine fitter while Ethel remained employed at the Cellular Clothing Company in Rodbourne.
George died on July 8, 1915 and Mary Anne in 1943. Ethel was still living at 111 Linslade Street when she died in 1956, more than 50 years after the family originally moved in.
A 1917 Trade Directory lists Annie as a shopkeeper living at 30 Swindon Road, which was her last home in the 1960s. She died at the Cheriton Nursing Home on December 31, 1962. She is not buried in this family plot and does not appear to be buried elsewhere in Radnor Street Cemetery. She never married and left effects valued at more than £5,000 to the administration of two solicitors.
Radnor Street Cemetery 