Blanche Louisa Smith

In some respects the desires of the 19^th century Swindon railway families were not so far removed from our own. People wanted a good standard of living, a regular income, food on the table and nice things in their home.

And when Blanche Louisa Smith married Thomas Edward Watkins she no doubt wanted the same.

The couple married in the June quarter of 1892 – not many weeks before their first child was born, again, not so very different from life today. At that time Thomas was working as an Engine Fitter in the railway works, a well paid job with good prospects.

Life had been a little different for Blanche. Her family had also been drawn to Swindon and the employment prospects here. On the 1861 census Blanche’s father was working as an ‘iron factory labourer’ (in the railway factory).

George died in 1879 aged just 41 years old. He was buried in the churchyard at St. Mark’s. By the time of the 1882 census his widow Ellen was living at 7 High Street (later renamed Emlyn Square) where she worked as a laundress. Living with her were three of her children, George 22 who worked as a boilermaker and Blanche 8 and John 5.

When Blanche and Thomas Watkins took their baby son to be baptised at the Primitive Methodist Church in Regent Street in 1892 they were living with Thomas’ parents in Eastcott Hill, but they would soon move away. In 1901 they were living at 17 Flathouse Road in the dockland area of Portsmouth, with their three young sons Thomas 8, George 6 and one year old Archibald.

When Blanche died in 1911 aged 38 years her address is recorded in the Radnor Street Cemetery burial registers as being 10 Oxford Street, Swindon. With no members of her Smith family buried in the cemetery Blanche was laid to rest with her father-in-law Charles Watkins who died in 1907.

Her two little daughters who died in infancy are buried in Portsmouth but remembered on the Watkins family grave in Swindon.

You may like to read more about the Watkins family here.

Granville Street and the Watkins family

The Griffin family – another Swindon story

The national news this weekend has been dominated by the announced closure of the Tata Steelworks in Port Talbot, South Wales with the loss of more than 4,000 jobs, half that number going within the next 18 months. Steel production in Port Talbot dates back more than a century with 20,000 employed there during the peak of production in the 1960s. The people of Port Talbot are fearful for the future of their town and the prospects for their young people.

Does all this sound rather familiar? Here in Swindon, where the railway factory closed in 1986, we now have a whole generation who never knew Swindon when it was a railway town.

For the children of Rodbourne who attend Even Swindon School the history of the railway works is kept alive, but is this the same for other schools in the town where local history has a low priority on the national curriculum.

Once upon a time (and yes, this is beginning to sound like a fairy tale) whole families were employed in the Works. Take the Griffin family for example.

Phillip James Griffin was employed as a clerk in the railway factory and all four of his sons followed him ‘inside.’ Eldest son Frank Aldworth Griffin entered service in the Works as a clerk, passing his probationary period satisfactorily along with the Paddington examination on May 17, 1898. He was followed by Phillip William Griffin who embarked upon a 7 year Fitting and Turning Apprenticeship on his 14^th birthday in 1899. Ralph Ernest Griffin was 15 years old when he began a Fitting and Turning Apprenticeship on April 16, 1903 and youngest brother Cyril Arthur started work on September 8, 1908 as an office boy aged 14.

The four brothers never married; Frank, Ralph and Cyril lived with their widowed mother Caroline in Clifton Street. Only Phillip William Griffin moved away, and when the time came he returned home to be buried with the family in Radnor Street Cemetery, the last resting place for so many of the railway men and their families.

Cyril died in 1934 and was buried with his parents in grave plot A742.

Frank, Ralph and Phillip Griffin are buried together in grave plot D440.

Emma Louisa Newberry

Image of Drove Road taken c1926 and published courtesy of Local Studies, Swindon Central Library.

Emma Louisa Newberry died in 1964 aged 96 years. Emma was born in Guernsey in 1867. She had lived through almost a century of enormous social change including two world wars, the second of which saw the German occupation of her former island home.

Unfortunately, I can find out very little about her family background, not even her maiden name, but I will continue to research.

By 1893 she had married Ernest Walter Newberry, a gas fitter, quite probably in Guernsey where he was also born and raised. Emma’s Swindon story begins in 1894 when her daughter Gertrude May was baptised at St. Mark’s Church on May 27. Emma and Ernest, who was employed in the GWR Works, then lived at 28 George Street. In 1901 they were living at 54 Dean Street where their second daughter Clarice Louise was born. In 1939 Ernest and Emma were living at 86 Drove Road, their last home together.

Emma outlived not only her husband Ernest but both her two daughters as well. She died in the Isolation Hospital, Swindon on May 17, 1964.

Emma was buried on May 22, 1964 in grave plot B2669 which she shares with her husband Ernest who died in 1940, her daughter Clarice Hallard who died in 1958 and her son-in-law Herbert Hallard who died in 1948.

Her elder daughter Gertrude May died in 1954 but she is not buried here in Radnor Street Cemetery.

A happy ending for one war torn family

On January 9, 1919 the SS Northumbria sank in the North Sea. Only two members of the crew survived; among those lost was Thomas Poole.

Thomas Poole was born in 1882, the son of William and Elizabeth Poole. He enlisted with the Royal Marine Light Infantry on April 9, 1901. In 1919 he had been drafted to the SS Northumbria, a Defensively Armed Merchant Ship carrying wheat from Baltimore to the UK, to man the ship’s gun. The ship sank off the coast of Coatham, County Durham, after striking two mines.

Thomas’s younger brother Henry John joined the Royal Navy in January 1907. He served on HMS Empress of India, Argyll and Leviathan before being transferred to the Royal Fleet Reserve in 1912. Able Seaman Henry Poole ended his naval career in 1921 on Vivid I, a shore based ship.

And along with a patriotic love of their country, the two brothers shared the love of a woman.

On February 16, 1916 Thomas Poole, a Royal Marine aged 34, married Beatrice Fanny Dixon aged 26 at Christ Church. The couple’s son Derrick Thomas Poole was born on October 20, 1918. Less than three months later Thomas was killed on the SS Northumbria.

Did he ever get to see his son? What was Beatrice to do now?

We can’t begin to imagine what life was like for those women in the immediate aftermath of the war. The 1921 census figures revealed that there were in excess of 1.7 million more females than males in the population – known collectively as the ‘Surplus Women.’ The prospect of marriage and a family unlikely for so many. But what about the women like Beatrice, widowed aged 30 and with a child to support. What kind of future could she expect?

In the December quarter of 1919 Beatrice married Henry John Poole, Thomas’s younger brother. They went on to have two children of their own – Gordon Henry John born in 1920 and Doreen Elsa born in 1930.

In 1939 the family lived at 138 Broad Street. Henry John Poole was working as a Rivetter’s Holder Up in the railway factory, Derrick was a Motor Mechanic and Gordon a Metal Machinist also in the railway works. Nine year old Doreen was still at school.

A happy ending for one war torn family.

Henry John Poole died in 1965 and Beatrice Fanny in 1977. Neither of them are buried in Radnor Street Cemetery.

Thomas Poole was buried on January 16, 1919 in grave plot D1023 where he lies alone. The CWGC Eyes On Hands On team of volunteers care for his grave.

Louisa Say – death from shock to the system

On August 26, 1891 Frederick and Louisa Say(e) took their baby son to be baptised at the Primitive Methodist Church in Regent Street when the seven week old baby received the rather grand name of Montague Frederick William Say.

Frederick was a blacksmith’s striker in the GWR Works and Louisa had been a needlewoman before her marriage. After the christening the little family returned to their home in West End Terrace, Westcott Place but just four months later a great tragedy struck.

In December 1891 Louisa, Frederick and baby Montague Frederick William were living at 13 George Street. Before she went to bed on the night of Wednesday December 21, 1891 Louisa hung her washing up on a line in the kitchen to dry over-night. But suddenly, the line gave way and as the washing collapsed the clothes knocked over an oil filled lamp setting Louisa alight. Louisa was dreadfully burned, and died that same night.

Louisa was buried in Radnor Street cemetery on December 26 in grave plot B1675, a public grave, where she lies with three other unrelated persons. She was 29 years old.

What happened to five month old Montague Frederick William? On the 1901 census he is aged 9 years old when he was living in Trowbridge with his paternal grandparents William, a woollen cloth dresser and Martha. His father was lodging with George and Mary Taylor at 6 Theobald Street, Swindon. In 1904 Frederick married widow Ada Maria Thomas and moved into her house in 101 Dean Street. By 1905 Montague, aged 14, was back in Swindon living with his father and step-mother. That same year he began a 7 year boiler making apprenticeship in the Works.

Frederick Say died in 1929 aged 64 and was buried in grave plot D98 with his second with Ada who died in 1923.

The little boy who lost his mother at just five months old went on to marry and have his own family. Montague was living in Kent in 1916 when he married Lilian Deeks. He died in Cosham, Hampshire in 1958 aged 67.

The New Ship Hotel more usually known as the Ship Inn published courtesy of Local Studies, Swindon Central Library.

Sad Death From Burning – Mr W.E.N. Browne, Coroner for North Wilts, held an inquest at the New Ship Hotel, New Swindon, on Thursday in last week on the body of Louisa Saye, wife of Frederick Saye, living at 13 George St., New Swindon. The evidence went to show that on Dec. 21^st. about 9.30 p.m., deceased was hang some clothes on a line in the kitchen of her own house, when one of the nails to which the cord was attached gave way. The clothes in falling overturned a lamp on the table, with the result that the oil ignited, and the deceased’s wearing apparel was set on fire. Her cries for help attracted the attention of her husband, who was in bed at the time, and he ran down and with some difficulty succeeded in extinguishing the flames. Medical aid was obtained, but Dr Jones (assistant to Messrs Swinhoe, Howse and Bromley), pronounced the case hopeless, and the woman, who was dreadfully burned, expired on Wednesday night in great agony. After hearing the evidence the jury returned a verdict of “Death from shock to the system,” and, on the suggestion of the foreman, Mr. A. Webb, gave their fees to the husband.

North Wilts Chronicle Saturday Jan 2, 1892.

Stephen Chequer – butcher

There was no lengthy obituary published in the local newspapers following the death of Stephen Chequer, just a brief death notice submitted by his family.

Chequer – March 17, at Westcott Place, New Swindon, after a long and painful illness born with great christian fortitude, Mr Stephen Chequer, butcher, aged 67. His end was peace.

Swindon Advertiser, Saturday, March 26, 1887.

So many of the inscriptions on headstones in Radnor Street Cemetery include a religious reference. In the increasingly secular age in which we now live, what sustains us at the end of our life?

When Stephen Chequer married Elizabeth Iles at St Mark’s Church in 1847 his occupation was that of labourer. Both he and Elizabeth made their mark in the marriage register, indicating they were not sufficiently proficient in writing to sign their names. Stephen obviously worked extremely hard to establish his own business with all the paperwork that involved.

By 1851 Stephen and Elizabeth were living in Westcott Place with their four children and Stephen’s widowed mother Mary. Stephen was 37 years of age and working as a farm labourer. It wasn’t until the 1871 census that we discover Stephen working as a Butcher in Westcott Place.

Stephen Chequer died aged 67 years and was buried on March 23, 1887 in grave plot E8466 which he shares with his wife Elizabeth who died in 1883.

Today Westcott Place is much altered and barely recognisable from this 1976 photo published courtesy of Local Studies, Swindon Central Library.

Stephen and Elizabeth’s daughter Emma Jane married Charles Edward Hall. You may like to read more about her family here.

Charles Edward Hall of 75 Morris Street, Rodbourne.

Rear Admiral Sir Arthur Hall – an extraordinary Swindon story

Sir Arthur Edward Hall KBE CB is not buried in Radnor Street Cemetery but his extraordinary Swindon Story deserves to be told.

Arthur Edward Hall was born on February 1, 1885, the son of Charles Hall, a boilermaker in the GWR Works, and his wife Emma. He grew up at 6 Andover Street, one of the streets that branched off the canal. A humble beginning for a man who went on to have a quite amazing career, as can be followed here in the obituary that appeared in The Times.

Adm. Sir Arthur Hall

Education in the Royal Navy

Instructor Rear-Admiral Sir Arthur Hall, K.B.E., C.B., who died at his home in London on Saturday at the age of 74, was a former Director of the Education Department of the Admiralty. He was the first naval officer to hold that post and the first to have the rank of instructor rear-admiral.

Arthur Edward Hall was born on February 1, 1885, the son of Charles Edward Hall. He was educated at Swindon College and the Royal College of Science, London. He taught for six years in the physics department of the Imperial College of Science before entering the Navy as an instructor in 1915. He served in the Inflexible during that war, was present at the Battle of Jutland, and was successively Fleet Education Officer to the Atlantic and Mediterranean Fleets, before he was appointed Deputy Inspector of Naval Schools in 1932. Four years later he was promoted to the new post of Director of the Admiralty Education Department where he served until his retirement in 1945. He was then for five years Director of Studies and Dean of the Royal Naval College, Greenwich.

Hall’s services to naval education were of the first importance. Yet he was active in many other fields as well. His connexion with the English Association was of long standing and he was chairman from 1951. He was a governor of Imperial College and chairman of the Royal School for Naval and Marine Officers’ Daughters from 1943. He was a member of the Hankey Committee on Further Education and Training (1943-45) and of the council of the Society for Nautical Research (1947-51). Among other organizations to which he gave his time were the Institute of Naval Architects and the Navy Records Society, of both of which he was treasurer, and the RN Scholarship Fund and the RN Benevolent Society.

He married in 1920 Constance Martha Gibbens, by whom he had a son and a daughter.

The Times, Monday November 23, 1959.

You may like to read the following family stories:-

Rev George Hunter – Primitive Methodist Minister

Rev George Hunter and his daughter Edith

Charles Edward Hall – 75 Morris Street

The Rev George Hunter and his daughter Edith

The Rev George Hunter was buried in Swindon on June 14, 1916. The inscription on his headstone reads ‘For 55 years a Primitive Methodist Minister.’ Born in South Cave, Yorkshire in 1834 the Rev George Hunter married Mary Thompson and had two daughters. Rosanna and Edith. This is her story.

In 1911 the widowed George was living with his daughter Edith here in Swindon at 75 Morris Street, Rodbourne.

Edith married shortly after her father’s death in 1916. Perhaps her role as her father’s housekeeper had prevented her from marrying when she was younger and then his age and infirmity had been an obstacle when she was older.

Edith was 46 when she married widower Charles Edward Hall. Charles was born in Hook in the parish of Lydiard Tregoze. He was a boilermaker in the Works. His first wife Emma died in 1915 and a year later Charles married Edith. When Charles died in 1935 he was buried in grave plot D951 with his first wife Emma Jane.

Although Edith would never have children of her own, she became stepmother to Charles and Emma’s son Arthur Edward Hall, who by the time of her marriage to his father had already made his mark on history. You can read his story here published tomorrow.

George died in 1916 aged 82 and is buried here with his two daughters. Rosanna who died in April 1930 and Edith who died in 1941.

George Hunt – Swindon’s Oldest Man?

Swindon’s Oldest Man? Ooh it was a bold claim to make – even with the qualifying question mark. You can bet there was someone willing to challenge George.

George was born in 1834 in Wootton Bassett, one of Robert, an agricultural labourer, and his wife Jane’s eight children. At the time of the 1851 census he was 16 years old and described as a ‘scholar,’ meaning he was still at school, which was pretty unusual for the son of an agricultural labourer.

In 1853 he married Jane Baker at the parish church in Wootton Bassett. They both state that they are minors (under the age of 21) and both made their mark in the marriage register indicating they were unable to sign their names.

By 1871 George and Jane along with George’s 15 year old nephew were living at 1 Union Street, Swindon, where together they ran a beer house and grocers shop. And here they stayed in Union Street, all be it living at different houses, until we meet George in 1929.

George died on October 5, 1929 and left effects valued at an impressive £1,694 8s 7d. But was he the oldest man in Swindon? I suppose we’ll never know!

Swindon’s Oldest Man?

Mr George Hunt, of Avenue Road, Swindon, who has just celebrated his 95^th birthday. He is believed to be the oldest man in Swindon.

Sadly, George Hunt died within weeks of the story appearing in the local newspaper. He was buried in grave plot E8155 on October 10, 1929. He joined Jane Hunt, his wife, who died at 7 Union Street aged 83 and was buried on March 6, 1917.

Albert and Elizabeth Beak – safe in the arms of Jesus

Albert George Beak and his wife Elizabeth (Eliza), devout members of the Baptist Church, died within 12 hours of one another. They were not old; he was 35 and she was 44. Without ordering their death certificates I do not know their cause of death. They left four orphaned children – Herbert 12, Albert 10, Clara 6 and four year old Sydney. I had hoped they were taken in by family members, but this does not appear to have been the case.

I discovered the two younger children Clara and Sydney on the 1901 census living in the Mueller Orphan Houses, Ashley Down Bristol. The Mueller orphanage was founded by Prussian born evangelist minister George Mueller. Mueller founded his first home for orphans in Wilson Street, Bristol in 1836. By 1870 the number of destitute children had increased to such an extent that Mueller built additional homes to accommodate more than 2,000 children.

The two older boys were more difficult to trace. I discovered two boys fitting their description on board the SS Sardinia with a number of unaccompanied children and young boys bound for Quebec on June 27, 1895. Could Herbert and Albert have been among more than 100,000 “home children” sent from Britain to Canada between 1869-1939 as part of a child emigration movement?

What happened to them is difficult to discover. There is a Herbert Beak who died in Devizes in 1909 aged 27. Could this be the elder brother, returned home? It would seem that Albert remained in Canada until 1946 when a man named Albert Harry Beak born ‘1 Feb 1883 New Swindon’ arrived in Buffalo NY.

Clara remained in Bristol where she died in 1907 aged 21. However, there is more reliable information available concerning Sydney, the youngest member of the family who was just 4 years old when his parents died.

Sydney Beak joined the Wiltshire Regiment as a tailor (most probably a trade taught him in the orphanage). He married Louisa Webber on August 2, 1917 in Lausanne, Switzerland. He was 29 and she was 22. Sydney died in Plymouth in 1962 aged 74.

Two in One Grave

A Sad Incident at Swindon

On Saturday last the funeral took place at New Swindon, of Mr and Mrs Albert George Beak, a married couple each about 40 years of age, who died almost within twelve hours of each other at the beginning of last week, leaving a family of four little children. Such an event as a double funeral, as theirs was, is not often seen in Swindon, and the ceremony at the graveside in the Cemetery was witnessed by something like 1,500 people. In addition to the relatives of the deceased, there were about 100 other mourners. Both husband and wife were ardent members of the Baptist Church, and the first portion of the funeral service was conducted at two o’clock in the Baptist Tabernacle by the pastor the Rev F. Pugh. There was a crowded congregation, and the service was very impressive. It commenced with the singing of a favourite hymn of the deceased persons, “Safe in the arms of Jesus.” After reading a portion of Scripture, the Rev F. Pugh offered a few remarks appropriate to the occasion, and then another hymn, “Oh, how sweet when we mingle with kindred spirits here,” was sung, and the concluding portion of the service conducted in the Cemetery.

Extract – Swindon Advertiser, Saturday, July 1, 1893.

Albert and Elizabeth Beak of 131 Princes Street, were buried together on June 24, 1893 in a public grave B1847, which they share with two others.