How good are you at dating photographs? This one is thought to have been taken around 1920. I have been unable to discover any details about this photograph taken outside W.J. Knee’s shop in Emlyn Square. What clues are there in the fashions? The girl at the centre of the group is holding a photograph – is this someone who has recently died or someone who has left Swindon to work abroad? And finally, is this a gathering of the Knee family?
The following two stories may help us date this photograph.
Postcard reproduction
William James Knee was the eldest of Arthur and Eliza Knee’s large family of 10 children. William was born in Melksham but by the time of the 1891 census the family had moved to Medgbury Road, Swindon where Arthur was employed as a Rivetter in the Works.
William also entered the GWR and in 1911 he was working as a labourer in Newport, Monmouthshire where he was lodging with a relative by the name of John Knee. That same year he left Newport to return to Swindon where he subsequently opened a newsagents shop on the corner of London Street and Emlyn Square.
Death of Mr W.J. Knee -The death has taken place at the Old Manor House, Salisbury, of Mr William James Knee, son of Mr and Mrs Arthur Knee, of 78 Medgbury Road, Swindon. Mr Knee, who was in his 46th year, carried on business as a newsagent in Emlyn square for a number of years. He had a breakdown in health and went to Salisbury for treatment of an internal complaint. He was well known in Swindon and was popular with many GWR employees. A telegram announcing his death was received this morning.
North Wilts Herald Friday January 10, 1930.
William was buried on January 13, 1930 in grave plot D494. His mother Eliza died in 1937 and his father Arthur in 1940 and both were buried with him.
The second story is that of William’s younger brother Dennis Arthur Knee.
Dennis was born in 1895 after the family arrived in Swindon, and at the age of 16 he was working as a Rivetter Carrier in the Works. But like so many men of his generation, Dennis would leave the Works to serve in the First World War. Unfortunately, Dennis’s attestation papers do not survive but we do know that in 1917 he was serving as a gunner with the Royal Marine Artillery on board HMS Vanguard. Dennis died on July 9, 1917 when the Vanguard sunk following a series of internal explosions while on a routine patrol in Scapa Flow. He was 22 years old and one of 843 out of 845 men who died that night.
Acting Bombardier Dennis Knee is remembered on the Portsmouth Naval Memorial.
Please get in touch if you have any further information about this photograph and/or the Knee family.
Radnor Street Cemetery 