Private John James Kendall – Tell Them of Us

John James Kendall was born in Bromsgrove in about 1884, the son of John Kendall, a nail maker, and his wife Ellen.

He married Agnes Winifred Jasper in the December quarter of 1906. At the time of the 1911 census they were living at 61 Hillfield Road, Sparkhill, Birmingham. They had been married for four years and during that time three children had been born, however, sadly two had died. John’s brother Bertie lodged with the couple and he and John both worked as ‘bread deliverer’s.’

Again the loss of military records hide the full story of the tragic death of John James Kendall. What action had he already seen, if any? Was it the fear of what lie ahead that caused his mental breakdown, or was it due to the recent seizure he had suffered and a lack of treatment for his epilepsy? Perhaps the death of his two young children years previously had led to undiagnosed depression.

Soldier’s Suicide

Followed Epileptic Fit

“Death from haemorrhage through cutting his throat while insane” was the verdict of a Swindon jury on Wednesday respecting the suicide of John James Kendall (34), a private in the Worcester Regiment, billeted at 24, Winifred Street, and whose wife and children live at Sparkhill, Birmingham.

Mr G.H. Russell was foreman of the jury. Evidence of identification was given by a brother, Lance-Corporal Bertie Walter Kendall, Machine Gun Corps, who had the “wounded” stripe and leaned heavily on a stick. In reply to the Coroner he said there was no strain of insanity in the family.

Frank Arthur Jackson, another private in the same battalion as deceased in the Worcester Regt., said he was billeted at 24, Winifred Street. On Monday Kendall was going on leave, and he went from the house to catch the 4.15 p.m. train. At 9.55 he returned to the house, and surprised to see him, the landlady asked how it was that he had not gone home. He said “I don’t know: I’ve lost my mind. I’ll think in a minute.” He sat down and had supper and asked witness for a cigarette. About a quarter to eleven he went out into the garden. Ten minutes later witness went out to look for him. He called, and at the second call of “Jack, where are you?” he heard a murmur. He went down to the end of the garden and found Kendall lying on the ground, smothered in blood and with a razor by his side.

“No one could get into the yard except through the house?” asked the Coroner.

“Not so far as I know,” replied the witness.

Lieut. Francis William Hartley, RAMC said he was called to the house close on midnight and found Kendall in a precarious condition, with his throat badly cut. First aid had been rendered. He died as the ambulance from the camp hospital arrived at the door. Death was due to the haemorrhage.

“Had you attended the man?” asked the Coroner?

“Yes, frequently,” said the doctor. “He was often complaining of illness – rheumatism, pains in the head, indigestion, and other small ailments. On Saturday, after he had been on light duty, he came to me and said that he felt a lot better and would I put him on full duty. I asked him if he thought he could stand it, and he replied “Yes.”

“There was no symptom of insanity, then?” the Coroner asked.

“Not at the moment,” the doctor replied. “He had an epileptic fit on August 8^th, and his brain was affected for some time afterwards.”

You saw him in the fit? – Yes.

The jury returned the verdict, as stated, that the man cut his throat while insane.

North Wilts Herald, Friday, August 24, 1917.

John was buried in a public grave, plot B1883 on August 25, 1917. The interment was conducted by an army chaplain.

Two years after this tragic event Agnes and her two daughters, Hilda May aged 9 and Winifred aged 2, born just months before her father’s death, left Britain for a new life in the USA. On October 8, 1919 they boarded the White Star Liner, the Adriatic and set sail for New York. Agnes died in Monmouth County, New Jersey in 1941.

Driver L.T. Hacker

June 21, 2022.

The longest day of the year

The grasses grow tall in the cemetery. A disgrace, a visitor complained on our recent guided walk. But the council groundsmen will soon arrive to cut down the summer lushness and meanwhile our team of dedicated volunteers continue to keep the paths mown across the cemetery to the war graves.

The late Mark Sutton, Swindon’s leading authority on the Great War and the Swindon men who served, often talked about the reaction of those first Wiltshire men who arrived in France in 1914 with the BEF. The countryside reminded them of home and the sweeping Wiltshire Downs, he said.

Ladas Tom Hacker was one of those first Swindon men to enlist, although hardly a man, still a boy. Recruitment officers bent the rules, boys lied about their age, patriotism was high.

Ladas Tom Hacker was born during the early summer of 1899, the only son of Tom Hacker and his wife Ada. He was baptised at the Independent Church, which once stood on the corner of Victoria Road and Bath Road and he lived all his short life at 16 Belle Vue Road.

All we know about Ladas Tom Hacker is that which is inscribed on his headstone, his military records were destroyed in September 1940 when a German bombing raid struck the War Office repository in Arnside Street, London where they were stored.

2730 Driver L.T. Hacker

Royal Field Artillery

24^th December 1915.

It is not known when he enlisted, only when he died from a short entry that survives in the UK, Army Registers of Soldiers’ Effects, 1901-1929 and the Radnor Street Cemetery Burial Registers. He died on Christmas Eve 1915 at Tidworth Military Hospital. His cause of death was Cerebra Spinal Fever, contracted as a result of his military service. He was 17 years old.

Hacker, L.T.

Driver 2730 3/3 Battalion Wessex brigade, ammunition column, Royal Field Artillery.

Died 24th December 1915.

B1815 Radnor Street Cemetery, Swindon.

Tell Them of Us by Mark Sutton

The pig on the chapel

People who attend our walks do so for a variety of reasons. Sometimes it is to visit the cemetery they remember from childhood when they accompanied a parent to visit a family grave. Some join us because they’ve only just discovered there is a cemetery in the centre of town. Then some years ago a visitor joined us to see if the pig on the chapel still survived. The pig (although I think it is probably a boar) is a gargoyle on the east facing wall and remains in good condition, as you can see here.

The same visitor then cast her eye around the lush, summer cemetery and mentioned that one of the grasses dated back to ‘the time of the dinosaurs.’

Now I’m no horticulturalist, but Andy and Noel were able to identify the grass as the horsetail. The RHS website describes the horsetail as ‘an invasive deep rooted weed with fast growing rhizomes (underground stems) that quickly send up dense stands of foliage.’

The fir tree like plants can grow up to 60 cm (2ft) tall with roots as deep as 2m (7ft) making them difficult to dig out. Fortunately there are no such triffid like examples in the cemetery and before too long the grass cutters will be out to cut them down and minimise the spread. But what about the claim that the horsetail dates back to the time of the dinosaurs.

Apparently ancient civilizations used the horsetail to stop bleeding and heal wounds. Although the plant is believed to have medicinal properties there is not sufficient research to confirm that it is safe and effective for human use.

And then, trawling through weed related pages on the internet I came across a ‘prehistoric’ reference on a Wikipedia page.

‘Equisetum is a ‘living fossil’ the only living genus of the entire subclass Equisetidae, which for over 100 million years was much more diverse and dominated the understorey of late Paleozoic forests.’

So our visitor was right. I learn something new every day spent in the cemetery.

And here is an image taken from yesterday’s walk. Many thanks to all who joined us.

Disgraceful scenes in the cemetery

When my much loved Auntie Ruth died nearly thirty years ago I was surprised at the number of ladies who attended her funeral and sang with great gusto. It was a pleasant surprise as I was her only living relative and she had few friends, so I was anticipating a small and sad funeral. I later discovered that these ladies were members of the church, and although my auntie was not, they attended every funeral, adding their voices to the hymns and responses.

At our recent guided walk given to members of the Swindon Society, Andy read out a letter published in the Swindon Advertiser in 1902 where uninvited mourners were definitely not appreciated.

Correspondence

Disgraceful Scenes

To the Editor of the Swindon Advertiser

Sir, – It has been my sad duty to visit the Swindon Cemetery rather frequently of late, and I have been struck with what I can only call the disgraceful scenes which are allowed almost daily to take place in what should be a sacred ground. Whenever there is a funeral, one notices the same crowd of women trampling over the graves to obtain a sight of the mourners and to discuss the qualities of the deceased. One day last week I happened to be there whilst three funerals took place, and the crowd appeared quite to forget the sadness of the occasion, their only object being to get a glimpse of all three gatherings.

Surely the officials must know these heartless gossips by now, and they should be given the power to prevent their admittance to the Cemetery grounds.

To any person who has a dear one resting there, it is painful to think that his or her last resting place is being trampled upon by women whose curiosity tide what should be their best womanly instincts.

Thanking you in anticipation. – I remain, yours truly,

A RATEPAYER

Swindon Advertiser October 1902.

Whitworth Road Cemetery

When Alderman Edwin Jones formally opened the new cemetery at Whitworth Road in 1914 he made a gesture of remembrance, uniting the two cemeteries and Swindon’s history. He planted an oak sapling grown from an acorn dropped by ‘the magnificent oak tree which is such a prominent feature of the Radnor Street cemetery’ reported the Faringdon Advertiser.

Today the mature shrubs and trees in Radnor Street Cemetery create a green oasis in the town centre, but where is that magnificent oak tree?

We believe this is the oak tree, pictured at the beginning of the 20th century.

In 1881 the cemetery was laid out on a piece of managed woodland called Howse’s (previously Wibley’s) Coppice. Local historian Kevin Leakey has kindly shared his work on plotting the fields as they appeared on the Tithe Map in 1841.

Kevin explains that the land on which the cemetery was later laid out was part of tithe free land. You can read more about Howse’s Coppice here.

How old was the oak tree in 1914. A hundred years old, two hundred, who knows? Sadly, it does not survive in 2022, but looking through the images in our archive Andy recently came across this one, sent to us by Robin Earle. Taken sometime in the 1980s this photograph captures an oak tree, heavily pruned but still there. We can only assume it was later deemed unsafe and eventually felled.

Swindon’s new cemetery on the Whitworth Road, which has cost the Town Council £7,283, was formally opened by Alderman E. Jones (chairman of the Health Committee) on Saturday.

The Council have acquired 35 acres of land, and laid out ten acres for immediate provision, and upon this they have erected a chapel at a cost of £760, and a superintendent’s lodge will be built at a cost of £400.

After an inspection of the grounds already laid out with drives, fencing, rockeries and shrubs, the chapel was visited, and appreciation of the compactness and pleasant appearance of the building was expressed by the members of the Health Committee present. To commemorate the occasion a tree was planted by Alderman Jones – a 12 years old oak sapling which grew from an acorn dropped by the magnificent oak tree which is such a prominent feature of the Radnor Street cemetery. Alderman Jones, in an interesting speech, remarked that that week commenced his twenty-third year in connection with the work of the town, and in looking back upon that long period he was sorry to recollect how many had passed away with whom he had been associated in public office.

In 1881 Swindon commenced to utilise the Radnor Street interment ground, and since that time there had been 13,500 persons buried in that cemetery; 1,800 grave plots had been purchased; 1,200 monuments had been erected, and the area contained 7,000 glass wreaths. This cemetery had cost the town £10,000, but it was recognised by the Town Council some years ago that other provision would have to be made for the growing needs of the community.

Negotiations for this further accommodation were commenced in 1907, and out of several sites this one, which combined an advantage of situation and Local Government Board requirements, was selected. It was hoped that this portion would last at least 40 to 50 years.

The Faringdon Advertiser, Saturday, May 2, 1914.

Swindon Society Summer Outing

We were delighted to welcome members of the Swindon Society to a guided cemetery walk yesterday evening. And although there was a chill in the air, it was a sunny evening with beautiful views across the cemetery. There is always a different atmosphere during a summer evening cemetery walk, something we have not attempted for several years now. Perhaps it is an event we will consider holding again.

The Swindon Society celebrates its 50^th anniversary in September. While other local history groups in Swindon are struggling with falling numbers post Covid restrictions, the Swindon Society is thriving. Yesterday marked the end of their season of talks for a brief summer break before gearing up for their 50^th celebrations.

More than 30 members joined us for our walk and heard stories about Emily Peddle, W.J. Nurden (the latest CWG headstone to be erected in the cemetery) and William Harvie inventor of the amazing Multiple Cake Cutting Machine. We later adjourned to the Ashford Road Club who kindly provided tea and biscuits alongside their usual bar facilities.

Thank you to Graham Carter for the photographs.

James ‘Raggy’ Powell – one of nature’s princes.

The re-imagined story …

My father loved a bargain. Our house was full of them. But sadly, everything he bought home was broken and he wasn’t what you’d call ‘handy.’ In a town full of men who could make and mend anything, usually ‘on the quiet’ in the Works, my father was the exception.

“They can see you coming,” my mother said. She was the fixer in our house.

My mother loved a bargain too and as fast as the battered and broken objects came into our house, mother got rid of them.

“Is that Raggy on his rounds,” she would call to me at play in the street. “Ask him to stop by.”

Raggy regularly came round the streets with his horse and cart, ringing his bell, buying the flotsam and jetsam of people’s lives. He would take most items, a bit like my father, and he always gave mother a fair price. He particularly liked a painting in a broken frame she sold him. That was the only thing father was ever really angry about, that painting of the Old Parish Church.

“I was going to mend the frame and hang it in the front room.”

Mother raised her eyebrow. We both knew he would never have got the job done and the painting would have stood in his shed behind the door forever.

“And if you don’t do something with the marble maiden in the garden, I’ll see what Raggy will give me for that as well,” mother threatened. “Blooming thing gives me the creeps.”

*Image published courtesy of Local Studies, Swindon Central Library.*

The facts …

Little is known of the early life of James Powell who was born in Dublin in about 1850. It was previously thought he had not arrived in Swindon until the 1890s but he is found living at 15 Rolleston Street with his parents and five boarders at the time of the 1871 census. Then aged 21, James was working as a hawker, another word for an itinerate street seller. James never moved far from the town centre. In 1881 he and his first wife Theresa lived over a green grocer’s shop at No 1 Byron Street. Theresa Clancey Powell died in 1889 and she is also buried in Radnor Street Cemetery.

By the 1890s James had set up home in Regent Close where he worked as a Marine Store Dealer. This was the name given to a licensed broker who bought and sold used rags, timber and general waste material; a rag and bone man, an occupation that earned him the nickname Raggy. In 1891 he married his second wife Harriet Maggs, a widow with two children, and it is with her that he is buried in Radnor Street Cemetery.

James had received little education but he constantly sought to improve himself by attending lectures at the Mechanics’ Institution and he turned to that other great champion of the people, Reuben George, who taught him how to read.

Although James was uneducated he appreciated the pieces of artwork he came across on his rounds, repairing broken frames and putting the paintings in good order before donating them to Swindon’s first museum housed in a former Catholic Church called Victoria Hall in Regent Street. Paintings by local artists George Puckey, John Hood and David Gaddon, donated by James still form part of the collection once housed in the Swindon Museum and Art Gallery in Bath Road.

Perhaps one of the most extraordinary objects donated to the people of Swindon by James is the statue that stands in the foyer of the Town Hall. The white Carrara marble statue by Italian sculptor Pasquale Miglioretti depicts Charlotte Corday who in 1793 stabbed and murdered Jean-Paul Marat, a radical journalist during the period of the French Revolution. How James came across this work of art on his Swindon rounds remains unknown but it surely deserves a more prominent position where more people can see it.

James stood for election following the incorporation of the Borough of Swindon in 1901 and served as a councillor for both the North and West Wards until the 1920s. One of his fellow Councillors later described him as ‘one of nature’s princes.’

He was an Alderman and also made a Freeman of the Borough in 1920 along with George Churchward, Chief Mechanical Engineer of the Great Western Railway, the first two men to be so honoured.

James owned various tracts of land, which he later gifted to the people of Swindon. A parcel of land in Savernake Street was given ‘for the benefit of scholars’ along with a plot in Gorse Hill.

James Powell was at the very heart of fund raising in Swindon during the Great War, arranging flag days and working with the Central Cinema and the Empire Theatre, organising family events. In 1917 he arranged numerous tea parties held in Town Gardens for members of The Social Club for the Wives and Mothers of Members of the Armed Forces.

The lost village of Imber

So, how have you celebrated the Platinum Jubilee?

A spur of the moment decision saw me and my two ‘grave’ friends Jo and Tania set off for a trip to the village of Imber. Deep in the heart of the Salisbury Plain MOD training area the village of Imber is inaccessible except on a few, rare occasions during the year and this year volunteers have been able to open the church of St. Giles during the Jubilee weekend.

In 1943 the village was occupied by the War Department for training purposes ahead of the D-Day landings. Already owned by the MOD, the village had long been under siege with villagers well used to a military presence all around them. But when the official order came to give up their homes, the patriotic Imber villagers complied with a heavy heart under the assurance that it would be for the duration of the war alone.

However, when the villagers prepared to return, they quickly discovered this was not, and never would be, possible.

For the story of the campaign to reclaim the village visit the Imber Village Facebook page and watch the video.

This stylish plaque inside the church is to the Wadman family of Imber Court, Lords of the Manor during the 17^th and 18^th centuries.

The text of Susannah’s last Will and Testament appears to have been a few informal words, which later required endorsement by two independent witnesses familiar with Mrs Wadman’s writing and signature.

My Son

I desire you will give to the poor of Road, five pounds and to the poor of Imber five pounds, and to the poor of Amesbury ten pounds each to be paid and distributed in a Nook after my Funeral. S:Wadman

My Son

I likewise give ye Servant ye is living with me at my death one years wages and as much of my Wearing Apparel of every kind as my daughter will not accept of

If Mrs Tayler will accept of such part of my Apparel as my daughter shall think proper to part with

(indorsed) This to my Dear Son

You still have time to visit the village during the Jubilee weekend, which will be open Saturday 4 and Sunday 5 June between 11-4. Do allow plenty of time though – it maybe awhile before you can make a return visit.

Battle of Britain commemorations 2015

As the country continues to mourn the death of Queen Elizabeth II we remember a royal event that took place in Swindon in 2015 when HRH Prince Richard, Duke of Gloucester paid a visit to Radnor Street Cemetery.

The Duke, in his role as Air Marshall, Royal Air Force came to commemorate the 75th anniversary of the Battle of Britain and one of ‘The Few’, Swindon born fighter pilot Harold Morley Starr. The week long Swindon Remembers commemorative festival concluded with a flypast by the Battle of Britain Memorial Flight and the Duke’s visit on Battle of Britain Day.

Harold Morley Starr was born in Swindon on September 8, 1914, the fourth of Ellen and Morley Starr’s five children. He grew up in the Central Temperance Hotel in Regent Street where his mother was the proprietor and his father worked as a shop fitter. Harold attended Clarence Street School, Swindon completing his education at Cotham Grammar School following the family’s move to Bristol.

While still at school Harold became a member of the Officers’ Training Corps and at the age of just 19 won an RAF scholarship and joined the air force as an acting pilot officer.

On August 31, 1940, at the height of the Battle of Britain, Harold’s Hurricane L1830 was shot down over Eastry near Sandwich during an interception patrol. The young fighter pilot successfully baled out at 15,000 feet but as he floated down three Messerschmitts circled him and opened fire.

Harold’s body was returned to Swindon where he was buried in a family grave in Radnor Street Cemetery. His funeral took place on September 6, two days before what would have been his 26th birthday.

Two blue plaques commemorate Harold and his brother Wing Commander Norman John Starr DFC & Bar. Visit the website for more details.

The Duke of Gloucester was then escorted to Swindon station where he unveiled a commemorative plaque to Sqn Ldr Starr on a First Great Western Class 43 locomotive.