Police constable Frederick Scammell and his family

Swindon's Story 1 Minute

Is this the original Bridge Street Club where Frederick William Scammell moved to when he left the police force?

Born in Donhead St Mary in 1872 Frederick was posted to the Police Station in Eastcott when he married Catherine Noad at Christ Church in 1897.

By 1901 he was serving in Shalbourne, Wiltshire. The couple had three sons Philip Edwin, Norman Robert and three weeks old Maurice Frederick.

Of these three boys two would enlist in the Wiltshire Regiment during the First World War. Philip, 19, was discharged just 13 days after he enlisted in Devizes in 1914, declared “Not being likely to become an efficient soldier.” Maurice died on January 14, 1917 in hospital in England. His cause of death was a fracture to the base of the skull, but it is not known how this happened.

But in 1901 this was all in the distant future for Frederick and Catherine. In 1911 Frederick was serving in Corsley Heath, Warminster. He was 38 years old and Catherine 37. They had been married for about 13 years and had 6 children who were all living.

Frederick died in 1918 when the burial registers record that he was Club Steward at the Bridge Street Club. He was buried on March 4 in grave plot C3468.

Catherine moved to Gorse Hill where she ran a shop at 147 Beatrice Street. She died at the Glenwood Nursing Home and was buried with Frederick on February 9, 1928.

Their son Philip Edwin, who was spared the ordeal of serving in the First World War, was buried with his parents in 1965.

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Published by Radnor Street Cemetery

I am a local historian and writer researching the history of Radnor Street Cemetery in Swindon. I have written three books - Struggle and Suffrage in Swindon: Women's Lives and the Fight for Equality published by Pen and Sword and The Ladies of Lydiard and West Swindon - What the eye doesn't see written in collaboration with Angela Atkinson and Roger Ogle both published by Hobnob Press.

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6 thoughts on “Police constable Frederick Scammell and his family”

  1. I think that this is the canal site entrance. I think that the main entrance was up in Commercial Road next to the bridge parapet. I seem to remember that there was a cigar/cigarette lighter flame at the entrance, but I haven’t spoken to anyone who can remember it, so perhaps my failing memory has got it wrong.

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  2. Sorry Rod! You must be thinking of the building that used to be the New Yorker discotheque, beside Milton Road canal bridge. This building is in Henry Street, opposite the side of the Holiday Inn Express. I believe it may have been the house originally occupied by the caretaker or minister of Fleet Street Baptist Chapel, which stood on the corner of Fleet Street and Bridge Street and closed in 1886. It was later rebuilt as a shop, now Subway. The stone building just visible on the left was the Baptist Chapel Sunday School, which stood at the back of the chapel, and which later became the the Albion Club.

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  3. Maurice Scammell: He died from injuries received in a road traffic accident at Preston, Weymouth.

    David Gardner, husband of a granddaughter of Frederick & Catherine.

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