The house in College Street where Alfred Ernest Evans died is gone. The town centre street where the prestigious College Street School once stood is now no more than an access road for shops.
The family home at 23 Commercial Road where William and Salome lived in 1928 looks a little different these days too.
And Princes Street where Salome died in 1936 was redeveloped in the 1970s.
Image published courtesy of Local Studies, Swindon Central Library.
Meanwhile, the inscription on the family’s headstone has all but disappeared.
But it is still possible to piece together the details of the Evans family life.
William Evans and Salome Purnell married in the December quarter of 1879 in Paulton, Somerset. Paulton was a coal mining village where William worked in the iron foundry there. The 1881 census sees the couple living in the Paulton Engine Houses – William aged 26, an iron turner, Salome 25 and their sixth month old daughter Florence with William’s mother Sarah 69, who states that her husband is ‘in asylum’.
By 1891 the family had moved to Swindon and were living at 7 Stafford Street. At the time of the 1901 census they were living in 49 Dixon Street and by 1911 they were at College Street. Salome states that the couple had been married 31 years and that they had 6 children still living (one had already died). Still living at home were Ethel 20 a tailoress, Alfred Ernest 17 a boot repairer and 15 year old Arthur Algernon who was still at school.
Alfred Ernest Evans died in 1916 at 4 College Street. He was 22 years old. He was buried in grave plot C3360 on April 22. William George Evans, a retired fitter, died aged 73 in 1928 when he and Salome were living at 23 Commercial Road. He was buried in grave plot C3360 on August 1. Salome was living at 47 Princes Street at the time of her death in September 1936. She was buried with her son and her husband on September 17.
From this unpromising start with a disintegrating headstone and Swindon streets altered beyond recognition, town centre homes demolished and properties repurposed, it has still been possible to recover the lives of one ordinary Swindon family.
Radnor Street Cemetery 