In Memory of Mary Jane Gunter

I thought I would rescue the identity of the woman buried in this grave before the inscription disintegrated completely. It turned out this was the easy bit.

At the time of the census 1881, a few months before she died, Mary Jane and her husband Joseph were living at 40 Prospect Hill where Joseph worked as a furniture broker. Joseph was 29 years old and Mary Jane was 23. The couple had married on December 18, 1880 at the parish church, Cirencester, less than a year before Mary Jane died. The burial registers record that Mary Jane Gunter lived at 14 Haydon Street when her funeral took place on November 21. She was buried in grave plot A404, only the 62^nd burial to take place in what was then a new cemetery.

Ten years later, on the 1891 census returns Joseph described himself as a widower working as an Engine Fitter’s Labourer and lodging with the Hand family at 128 William Street. Life didn’t treat Joseph kindly. In 1901 he was a patient at the district asylum in Devizes. In 1907 he was a patient in an asylum in Dorset where he died in 1910.

I then checked the grave plot details to see if Joseph was buried with Mary Jane, but what I discovered was not what I had expected. Although a privately purchased grave with a substantial memorial in place, 22 years later the plot was reused.

Charles Hitchings a grocer and shopkeeper lived with his wife Elizabeth and their family at 38 Belle Vue Road where he died suddenly on Sunday July 5, 1903. Mr W.E. Nicolson Browne (county coroner) held an inquest where it was heard that the deceased complained of pains near his heart after which he shortly fell dead. A verdict of “Death from syncope” was recorded and on July 8, 1903 39-year-old Charles Hitchings was buried in plot A404.

And then 35 years later grave plot A404 was used for the third and final time. Charles Edward Iles aged 74 and formerly of the Rolleston Hotel, died in the Stratton Infirmary and was buried on October 5, 1938.

Was there any family connection between Mary Jane and the two men later buried with her? Am I missing a clue somewhere?

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