With such a distinctive name as Charles Adolphus Sylvester Toogood it should be easy to trace this gentleman, and up to a point it is. His employment records provide a birth date, December 13, 1869 and his entry into the GWR company as September 20, 1886. And from 1891 to his death in 1946 we can trace him through the census records. But there is a gap – something catastrophic appears to have happened to the family between the 1871 and 1881 census’s. It seems likely that Charles Toogood’s mother died before 1881; neither she nor his father Alfred can be reliably traced on the 1881 census. However, a ten year old boy by the name of Adolphus Toogood can be found in the Lyncombe & Widcombe Workhouse. Could this be Charles?
Charles married Florence Ann Greenaway at St. Mark’s Church on January 31, 1895 and the couple had five daughters, the youngest Pearl died before her first birthday.
The following account was published in the Great Western Railway Magazine when Charles retired in 1930.
Mr C.A.S. Toogood, of the Chief Mechanical Engineer’s Department, Swindon, retired from the Company’s service on December 13, after nearly 44 years’ service, practically the whole of which was spent in the Locomotive, Carriage and Wagon divisional superintendent’s office, at Swindon. With the abolition of the Swindon division in May 1922, Mr. Toogood, with others of the staff, was transferred to Bristol, but he returned to Swindon in December 1928 and has been attached to the accounts section since that time. Mr Toogood received a handsome timepiece and notes as a parting gift from his past and present colleagues.
Great Western Railway Magazine March 1930.
Charles Adolphus Sylvester Toogood died in 1946 and was buried on November 27 in grave plot C983 where he joined his wife Florence who died in 1937.
Radnor Street Cemetery 