Area around the chapel where Harry C. and Lilian Preater are buried
The re-imagined story …
Every week I watched my mum put a penny on the mantlepiece and then I watched her struggle to pay her bills through the rest of the week. A penny went a long way in those days, but that penny would stay on the mantlepiece until Mrs Morse called to collect it. Mum never missed a week.
I knew mum’s brother Ernie had died in the Great War – what we were now calling the First World War. Most Swindon families had lost a loved one. Just twenty years had passed and the grief was still raw.
There were a couple of photographs of Ernie that hung on the parlour wall during my childhood. One of him at a family wedding and another of him in uniform just before he left for France. Looking back, I wonder why I didn’t know his story, I just knew he had died in the war. I suppose mum wanted to remember him as he lived not as he died.
It was years afterwards, when Mr Preater died, that I understood why mum saved her precious pennies and I discovered how my uncle Ernie had died.
Ernie had enlisted with the 1st Wilts at the outbreak of war. He had survived numerous, hard fought battles but was eventually caught and taken prisoner. The conditions in the German Prisoner of War camps were appalling, the men were half starved, kept alive only by the food parcels sent by the Swindon Committee for the Provision of Comforts for the Wiltshire Regiment and later the Red Cross.
Ironically, Ernie was put to work on railway buildings behind the German lines until, suffering from malnutrition and exhaustion, he became too weak to work. At the end of the war the prisoners were released, left to find their own way home, their health destroyed. Men like Charles Haggard who died within weeks of his return. Ernie didn’t even make it home.
The Duke of Gloucester’s Red Cross Penny a Week Fund was established in 1939 to support the various services provided by the Red Cross. My mum gave up her pennies to help another woman’s loved one survive a prisoner of war camp and come home.
Harry C. Preater
The facts …
Harry Charles Preater is buried with his wife Lilian in plot D65A close to the cemetery chapel. Harry was the eldest of Charles and Mary Jane’s nine children and when he left school he began work as a clerk. He later went on to run the family garage at Whale Bridge.
H.C. Preater Ltd.
Harry was also a prominent Mason, a member of the Calley Lodge No 7525 that used to meet at the Corn Exchange. Harry C. Preater was Provincial Secretary from 1942 to 1951 and Deputy Provincial Grand Master from 1952 to 1966.
During the Second World War Harry and his wife Lilian played an active role in the Red Cross. Lilian was the Honorary Commandant of the 68th Wilts Detachment of the British Red Cross and Harry was Secretary of the Swindon Penny a Week Fund which raised £16,500 towards supporting prisoners of war.
Harry C. Preater and his wife Lilian and sister Ada
Harry died in 1968 but his name lived on in the Harry C. Preater Masonic Lodge. The Consecration Ceremony took place that same year at the Civil Defence Centre, Savernake Street, Swindon and the banquet was held in the Civil Defence garage. The Lodge then held its meetings at the Masonic Hall, The Square, finally moving to the Planks when that building was completed.
Lilian died in 1970 aged 90. She was buried with her husband and Harry’s sister Ada.
The store closed the day of Mr Levi’s funeral, as a mark of respect. That kind of thing seldom happens now, but things were different in those days.
I had only just started work at Morse’s in the summer of 1913. Drapery assistants worked a long day and as a new, young apprentice I was called upon to do the more menial tasks as I learned my trade. I remember doing a lot of dusting.
Morse’s had begun as a small draper’s shop in Stratton St Margaret, opened by Mr Levi’s father Charles, more than 50 years ago. It was Mr Levi who opened the Regent Street store where he proudly announced that you could furnish your house ‘cheaply and well.’
I often wondered how much of his own stock he used to furnish his big old house at The Croft where he entertained his political friends and held the large Primitive Methodist conventions. My mum told me not to let the manager at Morse’s hear me speak like that as I would soon get my marching orders.
The staff were gathered together when the announcement of his death was made earlier that week. Many were moved to tears. I hung my head but to be honest I didn’t know him, his days of calling into the store and overseeing the business had long passed. We opened late that day, after we dressed the store in black, trimming last used when the old Queen died.
That week in September everyone spoke about Mr Levi in hushed, reverent voices. I wondered if he was really that well liked, or whether this was just the ‘old order’ speaking; those who touched their forelock when the squire drove past in his carriage.
The end of an era, people said. At 16 you don’t really appreciate what that means. But a year later the world was at war. Nothing was ever the same again.
The facts …
The remains of the late Mr Levi Lapper Morse were laid to rest at Swindon Cemetery on Saturday, when nearly 5,000 people witnessed the last rites.
The Cortege, on leaving The Croft, proceeded to the Regent Street primitive Methodist Church. It was headed by a posse of police under Inspector Winchcombe. Then followed the borough magistrates and the Mayor (Mr J.J. Shawyer). The deputy mayor (Mr G. Brooks), and the Town Clerk (Mr R. Hilton). Most of the members of the Corporation and representatives of the principal public bodies brought up the rear of the first portion of the procession. Two carriages laden with beautiful wreaths proceeded the handbier, on which the coffin was laid.
An imposing spectacle was made by the male and female employees of Mr Morse’s business, who came immediately behind the carriages conveying the family mourners. Next were the representatives of religious bodies, and finally about 200 friends and acquaintances who had attend to pay their last tributes of respect.
Besides the family wreaths were tributes from Sir William and Lady Hartley, the members of the Swindon Primitive Methodist circuits, the North Wilts Liberal Association, Members of the second Methodist circuit quarterly meeting, the business staff etc.
A Friend’s Tribute
An impressive panegyric was delivered by the Rev T.M. Pinnock, who described the late alderman as ‘my faithful and true friend for 40 years.” Speaking with evident emotion, the reverend gentleman referred to Mr Morse’s generosity to the Church both locally and in the connexion generally. Without him it would have been impossible for their church in Swindon to be what it was that day. Reference was also made to Mr Morse’s unobtrusiveness and natural business talent, which latter quality he made of immense serve to the Church. “He never forsook the friends of his youth,” added the speaker, “and he died fearing God. He sought to make God’s will the rule of his conduct, God’s service the joy of his heart, and God’s glory was the aim of his life.”
Another brief but earnest tribute was given by the Rev J.D. Thompson (general committee secretary), who said the sympathy of Primitive Methodists all over the country went out to the bereaved.
During the service the hymns “O God our help in ages past” and “Rock of Ages” were sung.
A cordon of police had been drawn round the chapel, on the west side of which was the grave, lined with the deceased’s favourite flowers – red roses – and many other beautiful blooms. Large and sympathetic crowds witnessed the final rites, conducted by the Revs. J.D. Jackson and J. Dobson.
A memorial service was conducted by the Rev T. Mostyn Pinnock (formerly of Swindon), at the Regent Street Church on Sunday night.
Extracts from The Wiltshire Times Saturday published September 20 1913
James Hinton pictured with his son’s family (left) and his second wife and two daughters (right)
What job opportunities would have been available to the young Florence Hinton? Unlike the daughters of the railway workers, she would hardly have joined the growing female workforce in the Carriage and Wagon Works. Of course, she might have been employed in one of her father’s several businesses but it seems more likely that she devoted her time to voluntary work with the Wesleyan Methodist community in Gorse Hill.
Florence Martha Hinton was born on December 21, 1872, the elder daughter of James Hinton and his second wife Sarah. Florence was baptised on January 9, 1879 with her sister Mary Ann at a Wesleyan Methodist church in nearby Farringdon.
James Hinton was a typical Victorian entrepreneur. During his lifetime he had several successful careers and was a prosperous landowner, a local politician and served as Mayor of Swindon in 1903/4. When he died in 1907 James Hinton left £18,910 worth approximately £2m today. But what kind of life did his daughter Florrie lead?
We discover most about Florrie’s life from a detailed obituary published in the Swindon Advertiser at the time of her death.
Florrie married Benjamin Harding, another business man and local politician, at the Presbyterian Church, Swindon on October 30, 1895. At the time of the 1901 census the couple were living at 35 Cricklade Road, Gorse Hill. Benjamin describes himself as a corn dealer and the couple employed 19-year-old Jane Gage as a servant.
At the time of her death in 1905 Florrie and Benjamin were at “Parkfield,” St Brannocks Road, Ilfracombe in Devon but her body was returned to Swindon for burial. The funeral took place from her parent’s home, The Brow, Victoria Road on what was described as a beautiful day where “a very large number of people attended the funeral on foot” and proceeded to Radnor Street Cemetery. The funeral service took place in the cemetery chapel which was filled with some of the mourners having to stand outside. The funeral report continued:
“At the graveside the ceremony was even more impressive, since the large crowd waiting patiently without was able to participate in the service.”
Among the mourners were members of the Gorse Hill Wesleyan Choir and the Wesleyan Sewing Meeting along with many Gorse Hill residents “the scene of so many of the deceased lady’s ungrudging labours, and where she was held in such loving esteem by all who knew her.”
Florrie was buried in plot E8278, close to the cemetery chapel. Her father James died two years later and is buried in the adjacent plot E8279 where her mother was also buried when she died in 1926.
Within four years Benjamin had remarried and was living in Gorse Hill with his second wife Ethel and their two children. He died in 1934 and was buried with Florrie.
The elaborate, black marble monument has an engraving of towers and rooftops and an inscription that reads “In my Father’s House are many mansions.” Florrie is also remembered in Gorse Hill in the naming of a street built by her father – Florence Street.
Published courtesy of Local Studies, Swindon Central Library
Job Day was born in 1840, the eldest child of stone mason Moses Day and his wife Esther. By 1874 Job had established two businesses, which he advertised regularly in the North Wilts Herald. Based at his home in North Street, Job set up as a coal and coke merchant alongside his work as a builder and stone mason ‘estimates supplied, building and drainage in all its branches, stove, grates etc fixed.’
The start of a new decade proved a busy one as he married Emma Matilda Pepler in 1870. On the work front during the early 1870s Job’s building projects included a house at the station and two properties in Cheltenham Street and in 1871 he built four houses numbered 42 to 45 North Street, properties in which the family would live at various times. On the 1881 census returns he was described as a Master Builder employing 1 man and 2 boys.
But perhaps his most prestigious contract proved to be his most problematic. A large school building programme began following the creation of the Swindon School Board at the beginning of the 1880s when Job applied for the position of Clerk of the Works. He was up against some keen competition but Job had an influential supporter in his corner. Newspaper proprietor Mr William Morris proposed the appointment of Job, which was seconded by bank manager Wm Brewer Wearing and Job was duly elected at a salary of £2 a week.
Sanford Street School, Swindon published courtesy of Local Studies, Swindon Central Library
His new job kicked off with the construction of Sanford Street School for Boys followed by the approval of the site and plans for a school in Westcott Street. But within two years things had gone badly wrong, as the following letter published in the North Wilts Herald explains:-
‘The Swindon School Board and the Clerk of the Works – Mr Job Day, the late clerk of the works to the Swindon School Board, requests us to publish the subjoined letter which he has addressed to the Swindon School Board in reference to a resolution passed at their last meeting;-
Gentlemen, I am in receipt of a copy of the resolution passed at your meeting on Thursday last, and as it reflects upon the acknowledgement of my services passed by you 24th March, 1881, I beg to return you the letter, as I should be sorry to retain it without, in your opinion, I had deserved it. Allow me to say, in reference to this matter, as a temporary accommodation I hauled 20 and 30 loads of sand at the starting of Westcott Schools. My relations with the contractors towards the end were of a very disagreeable nature, through the work I made them do again. Mr Binyon consented to some points in the building of the walls that I objected to. I said when the wall fell down it was through the mortar having perished, and I still have the same opinion.
It was my opinion that the walls should not have been built in the weather they were, but you must remember the work was greatly pressed by the Board.
I am, gentlemen, your obedient servant
Job Day
North Street, Swindon, 17thApril, 1882.’
Architect Brightwen Binyon responsible for designing numerous high profile buildings in Swindon. Image published courtesy of Local Studies, Swindon Central Library.
The altercation concerning architect Brightwen Binyon and the Swindon School Board did not hold him back though and during the 1880s he went on to build cottages in Clifton Street and houses in Hythe, Ashford and Kent Road.
At the time of the 1911 census Job Day was 70 years old and a widower. He lived at 45 North Street where his 17 year old niece Annie Pepler acted as his housekeeper. He describes his occupation as Builder & Decorator & Coal Dealer. He states he had 5 children, none of them living.
Job died on March 22, 1921 aged 80 years of age. He was buried on March 26, in plot E8013. Buried with him are his daughter Annie Sarah who died in 1899, his son William John who died in 1904 and his wife Emma Matilda who died in 1909.
Saturday July 8 sees Swindon celebrate the 75th anniversary of the NHS with the Mechanics’ Institution Trust. Events in the Emlyn Square area include an exhibition in the Central Community Centre with a talk on the GWR Medical Fund by Adam Busby at 4 pm. Visit the Railway Village Museum open 11-3 and join a walking tour of the Railway Village focussing on ‘Health.’ The Bakers Café will be open for refreshments.
This article was written by Graham Carter, Swindon Advertiser columnist, and published in the Autumn 2016 edition of the Swindon Heritage Magazine.
Milton Road Baths published courtesy of Local Studies, Swindon Central Library.
Grandpa, the man who saved the Medical Fund
Swindon’s GWR Medical Fund was famously a blueprint for the National Health Service when it was introduced in 1948, but what is often overlooked is the crisis that seemed destined to destroy the organisation during the First World War.
And while the name of George W. Brunger isn’t often remembered as one of the visionaries of a railway town with a health service more than a century ahead of its time, as chairman for 29 years and its last, then he deserves a special place in Swindon’s history.
And George’s granddaughter, Maggie, along with her elder brother Alan, who spent hours recording ‘Grandpa’s’ oral memoirs’ before his death in 1964, have been piecing together the family history.
It tells of how George, who had previously only been an ordinary member of the Medical Fund, stumbled on a crisis meeting at Milton Road Baths – now the Health Hydro – and took control of its destiny.
“Grandpa was returning home from a union meeting in London,” said Maggie. “After disembarking from the train in Swindon, he was walking home when he heard a commotion coming from the Medical Fund building, and decided to go in.”
Formed in 1847, the Medical Fund provided a comprehensive ‘cradle to grave’ service and operated its own hospital, but exactly a century ago, in the last weeks of 1916 faced a huge dilemma because of the First World War.
Many local men were occupied with the Railway Works’ contribution to the war effort, George himself working as a fitter in AE Shop, making heaving guns. But many of the town’s men were away on active service, so subscriptions were critically low, and the crisis meeting was called to find solutions for an organisation that had exhausted its credit at the bank, so its cheques for doctors’ salaries were bouncing.
With the management committee and members arguing over a proposal to increase subscription rates, the closure of the Medical Fund altogether was a very real prospect.
“Grandpa entered the meeting, which was in uproar, and pointed out that they would stay there all night and still not get anywhere. So he suggested that a special committee be appointed to investigate their problems, and report back to members.
“His motion was passed unanimously, with seven people nominated; and Grandpa was the seventh.”
After a few weeks’ deliberation, the special committee reported in February 1917, in a hall that was packed to overflowing.
Surprisingly, it recommended only a penny-a-week increase in subscriptions, rather than the threepence suggested by the management committee, whose view was backed up by the Medical Fund’s lawyer.
When the members overwhelmingly supported the penny plan, it was effectively a vote of no confidence in the management committee, and most of them resigned.
George felt obliged to stand for election to the new committee of 15, and after the man he proposed as chairman refused the post, he put himself forward, and was elected.
Then aged 35, he would remain chairman until the Medical Fund was dissolved to make way for the introduction of the National Health in 1948, apart from when he took a year off and was vice-chairman in 1924.
In interviews with his grandson, Alan, in later years, he revealed that many of the ideas adopted by the Medical Fund during his time as chairman were his own.
Aneurin Bevan, the Minister of Health who was in charge of introducing the NHS, naturally interviewed George during visits to see how the Swindon model worked, and they must have had discussions about the handling of doctors, which was a key issue when the NHS was eventually formed.
A major cause of the Medical Fund’s financial problems were the huge salaries commanded by the three senior doctors they employed who were based at Park House in the Railway Village. George’s novel solution was actually to increase the salaries of junior doctors, while slashing those of the senior ones, including Dr Swinhoe, at the top of the pyramid.
His dealings with the Medical Fund inevitably brought George into contact – but also conflict – with management.
As a humble fitter – his union activities prevented him from progressing up the managerial ladder – he found himself in meetings with the railway company’s Swindon top-brass, but stood his ground.
He was once ordered to remove his hat when meeting FW Hawksworth, but told the Chief Mechanical Engineer: “I haven’t come here to undress!”
George had come from humble beginnings, but showed himself to be a committed and fearless young man.
Born in Maidstone in 1881, when he was 17 he lied about his age, claiming to be 18, so he could enlist in the Royal Engineers.
He quickly found himself in South Africa with the outbreak of the Boer War, the following year, and, apart from a long spell recovering from dysentery, fought much of the campaign, receiving clasps on his medals from six key battles, including the reliefs of Mafeking and Ladysmith.
After the war he stayed in South Africa to work in the diamond-mining boom, but returned to Britain in 1906, and soon married a local Maidstone girl Lillian Price.
They were married on Boxing Day 1906, but instead of honeymooning, after the ceremony they took the train to Swindon to begin a new life.
Arriving at 9.30pm, with snow on the ground, they walked from the railway station to their lodgings in Rodbourne, with a canary in a cage among the wedding presents they carried with them.
They later set up a permanent home at 40 Kingshill Road.
Always a union man, and an official for the Amalgamated Engineering Union (now the AUEW), George was also one of the founders of the Labour Party in Swindon, and served the party on the Town Council from 1919 to 1932.
As Chairman of the Housing Sub-committee in 1922 he oversaw the building of Swindon’s first (and one of the country’s first) council housing estates, at Pinehurst.
Such was the demand for houses that the queue of people outside the Brungers’ home in Kingshill, applying directly to George to move them up the list, led to the family calling the front room ‘the office’.
“He would have been mayor,” said Maggie, who lives in the United States but has been on an extended visit to her home town. “But my grandmother, who was very retiring, wouldn’t have it.”
He retired from both the Railway Works and the Medical Fund in 1947.
Maggie was 16 when he died, and missed the funeral because she was taking O Level exams on the day. Remarkably, his death occurred the day after Maggie’s brother Alan left Swindon to emigrate to Canada.
“He was a lovely old man,” said Maggie. “And of course to me he was always an old man. He was not a big talker, but he was well respected.
“I remember his black leather boots, which he kept by the fireplace, his red hair and his big hands. Every time I go up the beautiful stairs in the Health Hydro, I like to think of him grasping the rails.”
These days the committee room where George presided is often empty, while the smaller of the building’s two swimming pools is also closed, perhaps permanently.
The building was once a jewel in Swindon’s crown, and says as much about the vision and approach of Swindon’s leaders in past times – men like George Brunger – as the Mechanics’ Institute.
With its washing baths, swimming baths and even Turkish and Russian baths, it represented arguably the best leisure facilities enjoyed by any British workers at the time, as well as the medical facilities and services also available to members of the Medical Fund and their families.
But the building faces an uncertain future, just as it did, exactly a century ago, when destiny brought George Brunger, with perfect timing, to its doors.
Graham Carter
George Brunger died at St Margaret’s Hospital in June 1964 and is buried in grave plot C956, which he shares with his wife Lillian who died in 1955.
George William Brunger
Swindon Heritage was a quarterly local history magazine co-founded by Graham Carter, the late Mark Sutton and myself and was published from 2013-2017. Back copies are still available at the Swindon Library Shop, Swindon Central Library and at the cemetery chapel during our guided walks. Our next walk takes place on Sunday July 16, 2023. Meet at the chapel for 2 pm.
Unlike Highgate Cemetery in London, Radnor Street Cemetery is not a tourist destination. Plenty of Swindonians don’t even know of its existence. There are no elaborate mausolea, no Egyptian Avenue or Terrace Catacombs and although at first sight there appear to be large numbers of headstones, the vast majority of graves are unmarked.
The GWR Works opened in 1842 and employed more than 1,700 men twenty years later. At the same time a shortage of burial spaces in the town became of critical concern, but the Radnor Street cemetery was not opened until 1881.
Highgate Cemetery has been the setting for numerous books, several films and in the 1970s was subject to a bizarre vampire obsession. Radnor Street cemetery online archives include just a few early 20th century photographs and a 1980s music video filmed by Swindon music legend XTC.
Highgate Cemetery is famous for being famous; for the number of people of note and celebrities interred there. Radnor Street cemetery is all about working class history. The men who rose through the ranks of the railway engineering hierarchy and others who spent a lifetime on the factory floor in the GWR Works. Those men who served in two world wars and died as the result of their service. The women who trained as nurses, who taught in Swindon’s schools, worked in factories, shops and offices and raised large families who began the cycle all over again.
This is Swindon’s working class history – stories of the triumphs and the tragedies and the sheer hard work.
Welcome to Radnor Street Cemetery – a celebration of the working-class history of our town.
The Radnor Street Cemetery burial registers along with those relating to other Swindon cemeteries, are held at the Kingsdown Crematorium and are available for consultation by appointment. The Radnor Street Cemetery burial registers are in remarkably good condition, especially considering the different places they have been stored over the years. Rumour has it that they were once left in the cemetery chapel. Thankfully they didn’t suffer the same fate as the stonemason’s records, which were used to ignite a fire some years ago.
One set of registers are compiled chronologically, the other alphabetically and you need to have the full and correct name of the person for whom you are searching and the date of their death. There is also a set of grave plot registers with details of those buried in each grave.
The style of handwriting changes over the years and can take some getting used to, although it has to be said that the earlier volumes written in copperplate are often the easiest to read.
So, whose task was it to enter the details in these large tomes? The first caretaker appointed when the cemetery opened in 1881 was Charles Brown so perhaps it was his job to fill in the paperwork. Or could it have been the job of the Clerk to the Burial Board, Mr J.C. Townsend? Unlikely, as James Copleston Townsend was a solicitor and headed a busy legal practice based at 42 Cricklade Street.
The details in the registers reveal the various funeral directors at work in Swindon and the numerous ministers who attended at the committal. And fascinating facts about long forgotten terraces of houses, the name subsequently abandoned when construction on the street was completed. So many of these town centre streets now lie beneath modern developments – for example Canal Side, Brunel Street and Cromwell Street.
Mary Ann Harwood and Ferdinand Turner grew up in the small rural parish of Lydiard Tregoze, on the outskirts of Swindon, most of which was owned by the St John family at Lydiard Park.
Ferdinand Turner was baptised at the parish church of St Mary’s on October 11, 1829, the son of Emma Turner, an unmarried woman who worked as an agricultural labourer. Mary Ann was the daughter of Robert Harwood, an agricultural labourer, and his wife Susannah. She was baptised on April 1, 1832 also at St Mary’s Church.
The young couple married on December 22, 1855 at St Mary’s. In 1871 they were living in Toothill where they both worked as agricultural labourers. Their elder daughters Sarah Jane and Elizabeth worked on the land with them, and possibly their younger daughters Susan and Lucy as well. Their youngest two children were Mary Ellen, aged 3 and 5 month old Frederic William.
But change was on the way and you have to ask yourself just how much sorrow can one family endure?
Mary Ann’s younger brother Robert died in 1872 in a shocking accident while out poaching on land at Toothill Farm.
Shocking Death. – An inquest was held on Monday at Toothill Farm, about four miles from Swindon, on the body of Robert Harwood, aged 27, an engine-driver in the employ of the Great Western Railway Company, who had been found dead on the farm on Sunday, with a gunshot wound through the head upwards. The spot where the body was found commanded a view of several fields, and it is conjectured the deceased went to the farm on Sunday early and shot rabbits from this point, two being found near him. It is supposed that he was drawing his gun towards him to shoot again, when it became entangled, and, the trigger being moved, the gun exploded. The charge entering the throat under the left ear in an upward direction, death of course was instantaneous. When the body was found the muzzle of the gun was towards it, and the butt end in the hedge. Verdict “Accidentally killed by a gun while unlawfully shooting rabbits.”
Southern Times Saturday, July 27, 1872.
The grave of Robert Harwood in St Mary’s Churchyard, Lydiard Tregoze
Robert was buried with his father in the old country churchyard at St. Mary’s. The ripples of shock and grief swept through the family and no doubt Mary Ann drew close to support her widowed mother. But within three years another tragedy hit the family.
By 1875 the Turner family had moved into Swindon and a home in Haydon Street close to the GWR Works where Ferdinand was employed as a labourer. One Saturday morning in March 1875 their two younger children, Mary Ellen and Frederick, walked back to Mannington to visit the neighbours they had once been so close to.
Burned to death – Mr Coroner Whitmarsh held an inquest at the Great Western Hotel, Swindon Station, on Wednesday, on the body of Mary Ellen Turner, seven years of age, daughter of Ferdinand Turner, of New Swindon, a laborer. It appeared that deceased, accompanied by a brother five years of age, left home at ten o’clock on Saturday morning for the house of a person named Carter who lived at Mannington, and was formerly a neighbor of deceased’s mother. The children got there safe enough and, at twelve o’clock, had some dinner with Mrs. Carter, and on the latter again going out to her work in the fields the children with others followed her. They played in the same meadow as that in which Mrs Carter was engaged, and amused themselves for sometime in gathering the early spring flowers which they were fortunate enough to find. In about half an hour, however, Mrs Carter was startled at hearing dreadful screams, and on going in the direction from which they proceeded she saw deceased, whose clothes were in flames, running towards her. It seemed that in putting some sticks on a small fire which was near, and which Mrs Carter’s daughter (a girl about fourteen years old) had lit to keep herself warm while bird-keeping, deceased’s water-proof became ignited. She instantly took it off, but the flames caught her dress, and, finding they had attained a mastery, the child screamed aloud, which as before shown, attracted Mrs Carter’s attention. She did what she could under the circumstances, and deceased was taken to a neighbor’s house. The doctor was sent for, and in a very short time Mr Simon, an assistant to Messrs. Swinhoe and Howse, attended. He dressed the wounds, and the child was removed home to Swindon in a dog-trap. The case, however, was a hopeless one from the first, and deceased died the same night, at a quarter to nine o’clock, from exhaustion and shock to the system, the result of the injuries received. The jury returned a verdict of “Accidentally burnt.”
The North Wilts Herald, Saturday, March 27, 1875.
Poor little Mary Ellen was buried in the churchyard at St Mark’s Church in the railway village on March 25, 1875.
And then in 1886 the couple lost their daughter Susan who died aged 25. Without access to her death certificate we do not know what the cause of death was. A death announcement was published in the Swindon Advertiser, but there is no account of how she died. As a young, unmarried woman it is doubtful she died during childbirth so we can only suspect she died from an illness. She was buried on January 21st, 1886 in grave plot A415 where this elegant headstone was later erected.
Was this all there was to discover about this family? I hoped there would be no further tragic deaths.
Ferdinand died in 1904 aged 72 years old and is buried in the plot next to his daughter, A414. Mary Ann died two years later aged 70 and joined Ferdinand.
Almost thirty years later Susan was joined by a brother-in-law she had never known as he came on the scene long after her death. David L.H. Price was the husband of her elder sister Elizabeth. David worked as a striker in the Works and died at his home 95 Linslade Road, Rodbourne. His funeral took place on May 4, 1915. He was 48 years old.
Job Day, Jabez Henry Forshaw and C. Joyce were among the builders who begun work on a New Swindon street in 1869/70. By the time of the 1871 census Cheltenham Street was a busy residential town centre street extending from Station Road to the canal. It vanished in all but name with the demolition of more than 80 houses and the later construction of the Tri Centre complex built in the 1980s.
Photographs taken recently show the Fleming Way area as work begins on the ambitious £33m bus boulevard project due for completion in 2024. Reduced to the Cheltenham Street car park for many years this latest project may be the final death knell for a street that provided homes for a busy town centre community. This aerial view is believed to date from the late 1950s before the area was ‘improved’ during an earlier regeneration scheme.
So, what brought James Hager Adnams and his wife Elizabeth to Swindon following their marriage in London in 1863. Two years previously James had served as a Chief Quartermaster on HMS Ganges before the ship was converted into a training ship however, by 1871 the couple were living at 47 Cheltenham Street in a house they shared with Zacharias Peskett and his wife Ann. James describes his status as Seaman Pensioner. James and Elizabeth continued to live with Zacharias when in 1881 their address is 75 Cheltenham Street. They may have moved into another house in the same street or the street may have been renumbered as further properties were added.
James died at number 75 Cheltenham Street in April 1887 and was buried in a public grave in Radnor Street Cemetery plot number B1392. Elizabeth continued to live in the same house, taking a lodger by the time of the 1901 census. Elizabeth died in April 1910 and was buried on April 9, the anniversary of her husband’s funeral. She is also buried in a public grave plot B2360.
In 1912 Cheltenham Street was the former home of retired GWR foreman Benjamin Howard 63, and his wife Ellen 61, when they decided to join their two sons in America. Having sold up their belongings and said goodbye to friends they set sail in style on the ill-fated, luxury liner, the Titanic. Benjamin and Ellen were among more than 1,500 people who died on the ship’s maiden voyage. Their bodies were never recovered.
It was my great good fortune to recently meet up with some overseas visitors researching the Alley family. Di, George and Kay are all descended from Frederick Alley and his wife Elizabeth. When we visited the couple’s grave in Radnor Street cemetery with local Alley family historian Wendy, we talked about their large family (18 children) and the seven who had died, whose burial places were unknown.
Originally from Westbury and Trowbridge the young couple arrived in Swindon in the late 1860s, appearing on the 1871 census living at 64 Cheltenham Street with their two sons, Frederick 4 and one year old Albert, both born in Trowbridge. Two children had already died.
So many of their lost children were born and died in between the taking of the 10 yearly census returns, but the visiting family members knew their names and all I had to do was discover where they were buried.
Eldest daughter Annie Phedora, born in 1865 who died in 1870 was buried in St Mark’s churchyard. George Martin, born in 1868 died in 1871 and was also buried at St Marks.
View of St Mark’s taken from the cemetery
Three boys and another little girl are all buried in Radnor Street Cemetery although, sadly not together.
Charles was 9 months old when he died in April 1883. He was buried in a public plot number A490 which he shares with six other babies and young children who died between 1883 and 1902.
Later that same year Frederick and Elizabeth lost another baby son. Sidney was only 16 hours old when he died in November 1883. He was buried in a public plot number A62 which he shares with two others; a girl aged 11 years who died in 1901, almost 20 years later. The third burial was that of a gentleman aged 89 who died in 1928, so again another long gap between interments.
Arthur was 11 months old when he died in November 1885. He is buried in plot number A110 with five other babies and young children who died between 1885 and 1915.
The family home at the time these babies died was at 65 Gooch Street.
Lizzie died aged 3 years old and was buried on January 1, 1891. She is buried in a public plot number B1922 with five other babies aged 2 – 13 months who died between 1891 and 1917. At the time of her death the family lived at 16 Princes Street.
Unfortunately, I have been unable to find the burial place of one remaining daughter. Elizabeth Maria was born in 1873 and died before her first birthday, but at least we now know where six of those seven little children are buried. I didn’t like the thought of them being ‘lost’.
Radnor Street Cemetery 