The Woolford family

One of our volunteers recently sent me a photo of a grave she had cleared and tidied up. This angel memorial surmounts the grave of a young child. Bex has a knack of finding graves with a particularly poignant story.

Terence Anthony Woolford was born in July 1930, the first of Reginald and Gladys Woolford’s three children. Reginald Charles Woolford was born in 1904, the son of Charles Woolford who worked as a wheel turner in the railway factory. In 1928 Reginald married Gladys Rose Popham, the daughter of Ernest Popham, a fitter in the railway factory.

Reginald and Gladys were living at 7 Drove Road in January 1936 when their young son was taken ill. He was admitted to the Isolation Hospital where he died. He was 5 and a half years old. His funeral took place in Radnor Street Cemetery on January 20 where he was buried in grave plot C1720.

I am presently engaged in a BIG project transcribing the diaries of a local farmer as part of the Friends of Lydiard Park’s archival work. Elliot Woolford kept a daily diary from 1885 until his death in 1940. No mean feat for a busy farmer with a small team of family members and local labourers working with him.

And then I wondered if there could possibly be any connection between Elliot and this little boy buried in Radnor Street Cemetery.

So far I have traced Elliot’s family back several generations. There have been Woolfords living in the Purton, Lydiard Millicent and Lydiard Tregoze area for at least 600 years. From Robert Woolford who married Susannah Staley in the parish church at Lydiard Millicent in 1757 to “William Woolford of ye parish of Lidyeard Treagoze in the County of Wilts yeoman” who in 1695 left four of his sons William, Benjamin, Nicholas and Oliver, £5 each in his will.

Returning to the story of little Terence Anthony Woolford…

A family historian has placed an extensive Woolford family tree on the Ancestry, website which I navigated with alacrity. At first there were no obvious connections; no farming background for Reginald, no links with the rural Lydiard parishes, but back and back I went. Then I discovered John Woolford born in 1600 in Trowbridge. John married Elizabeth Baker in the church of St. Mary’s, Lydiard Tregoze on February 12, 1621. He died in his adopted parish on February 28, 1674 and was buried in the churchyard there. This John Woolford appears in both little Terence and Elliot Woolford’s family tree.

Thank you Bex for another fascinating find.

Before and after photos.

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