We do not know the date that Ladas Tom Hacker enlisted. He could have served but a few months as by December 1915 he was dead. Still hardly a man, just a boy. Recruitment officers bent the rules, boys lied about their age, patriotism was high.
Ladas Tom Hacker was born during the early summer of 1899, the only son of Tom Hacker and his wife Ada. He was baptised at the Independent Church that once stood on the corner of Victoria Road and Bath Road and he lived all his short life at 16 Belle Vue Road.
All we know about Ladas Tom Hacker is that which is inscribed on his headstone, his military records were destroyed in September 1940 when a German bombing raid struck the War Office repository in Arnside Street, London where they were stored.
2730 Driver L.T. Hacker
Royal Field Artillery
24th December 1915.
We know where he died from a short entry that survives in the UK, Army Registers of Soldiers’ Effects, 1901-1929 and the Radnor Street Cemetery Burial Registers. He died on Christmas Eve 1915 at Tidworth Military Hospital. His cause of death was Cerebro Spinal Fever, contracted as a result of his military service. He was 17 years old.
Hacker, L.T.
Driver 2730 3/3 Battalion Wessex Brigade, ammunition column, Royal Field Artillery.
John James Kendall was born in Bromsgrove in about 1884, the son of John Kendall, a nail maker, and his wife Ellen.
He married Agnes Winifred Jasper in the December quarter of 1906. At the time of the 1911 census they were living at 61 Hillfield Road, Sparkhill, Birmingham. They had been married for four years and during that time three children had been born, however, sadly two had died. John’s brother Bertie lodged with the couple and he and John both worked as ‘bread deliverer’s.’
Again the loss of military records hide the full story of the tragic death of John James Kendall. What action had he already seen, if any? Was it the fear of what lie ahead that caused his mental breakdown, or was it due to the recent seizure he had suffered and a lack of treatment for his epilepsy? Perhaps the death of his two young children years previously had led to undiagnosed depression.
Soldier’s Suicide
Followed Epileptic Fit
“Death from haemorrhage through cutting his throat while insane” was the verdict of a Swindon jury on Wednesday respecting the suicide of John James Kendall (34), a private in the Worcester Regiment, billeted at 24, Winifred Street, and whose wife and children live at Sparkhill, Birmingham.
Mr G.H. Russell was foreman of the jury. Evidence of identification was given by a brother, Lance-Corporal Bertie Walter Kendall, Machine Gun Corps, who had the “wounded” stripe and leaned heavily on a stick. In reply to the Coroner he said there was no strain of insanity in the family.
Frank Arthur Jackson, another private in the same battalion as deceased in the Worcester Regt., said he was billeted at 24, Winifred Street. On Monday Kendall was going on leave, and he went from the house to catch the 4.15 p.m. train. At 9.55 he returned to the house, and surprised to see him, the landlady asked how it was that he had not gone home. He said “I don’t know: I’ve lost my mind. I’ll think in a minute.” He sat down and had supper and asked witness for a cigarette. About a quarter to eleven he went out into the garden. Ten minutes later witness went out to look for him. He called, and at the second call of “Jack, where are you?” he heard a murmur. He went down to the end of the garden and found Kendall lying on the ground, smothered in blood and with a razor by his side.
“No one could get into the yard except through the house?” asked the Coroner.
“Not so far as I know,” replied the witness.
Lieut. Francis William Hartley, RAMC said he was called to the house close on midnight and found Kendall in a precarious condition, with his throat badly cut. First aid had been rendered. He died as the ambulance from the camp hospital arrived at the door. Death was due to the haemorrhage.
“Had you attended the man?” asked the Coroner?
“Yes, frequently,” said the doctor. “He was often complaining of illness – rheumatism, pains in the head, indigestion, and other small ailments. On Saturday, after he had been on light duty, he came to me and said that he felt a lot better and would I put him on full duty. I asked him if he thought he could stand it, and he replied “Yes.”
“There was no symptom of insanity, then?” the Coroner asked.
“Not at the moment,” the doctor replied. “He had an epileptic fit on August 8th, and his brain was affected for some time afterwards.”
You saw him in the fit? – Yes.
The jury returned the verdict, as stated, that the man cut his throat while insane.
North Wilts Herald, Friday, August 24, 1917.
John was buried in a public grave, plot B1883 on August 25, 1917. The interment was conducted by an army chaplain.
Two years after this tragic event Agnes and her two daughters, Hilda May aged 9 and Winifred aged 2, born just months before her father’s death, left Britain for a new life in the USA. On October 8, 1919 they boarded the White Star Liner, the Adriatic and set sail for New York. Agnes died in Monmouth County, New Jersey in 1941.
John Henry Puzey was born on August 10, 1895 at Upper Stratton, the youngest of four sons. By the time of the 1911 census his parents John and Sarah with younger sons Alfred Robert and John Henry were living at 165 Redcliffe Street, Rodbourne. Three elder sons had followed their father into the GWR Works but John Henry had taken a different career path and at 15 was an apprenticed house decorator. A bit of a lad was John, so say those who remembered him.
John Henry Puzey enlisted at Swindon on October 7, 1915 with the Wilts (Fortress) R.E. (T) and was later transferred to the 3/1 Wessex Field Coy. R.E. serving in Salonika. On August 1, 1919 John Henry Puzey was examined at Tiflis prior to being demobilised. He signed the following statement: I do not claim to be suffering from a disability due to my military service. His signature reveals a shaky hand. On September 14, 1919 he was discharged from Fovant in Wiltshire, No. I Dispersal Unit. His Medical Category was described as A1. But John was clearly not in good mental health.
“His illness was not diagnosed as shell shock but merely a worsening of his mental state before WWI,” says his great niece, Mary. He was clearly suffering from what would now be called Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). Whatever the terminology, whatever name you want to give it, John’s mind was destroyed by war.
John Henry Puzey was admitted to Roundway Hospital, the former Wiltshire County Lunatic Asylum, in Devizes, Wiltshire. His family visited him regularly, his brother Alfred taking over the responsibility after their mother’s death. Alfred would bring his little granddaughter Mary to see his brother. Mary recalls how when he was in good health he shopped in Devizes for the staff and went out with the staff football and cricket teams.
“During visits if he was well, we saw him in the canteen/visitors room. I remember one Christmas one of the inmates had painted an alpine scene around the walls. It was wonderful. In summer months we would walk around the grounds, which he helped to maintain. He always took us to the garden tool store room under the main hospital. He called this his dugout. To him it was a safe area the same as his dugout in Salonika,” said Mary.
John Henry Puzey died at Roundway Hospital on July 25, 1962. He was 66 years old. He left administration of his will to the brother who had visited him in hospital for all those years, retired boilermaker Alfred Robert Puzey. John Henry was buried in Radnor Street Cemetery on July 31, 1962. He shares plot D636 with his parents, John who died in 1928 and Sarah Ann who died in 1947.
One of our regular cemetery followers has a wealth of family history knowledge, a vast archive of photographs and ephemera, more than one family grave in Radnor Street Cemetery plus a photograph taken at the time of his grandmother’s funeral in 1937. How lucky are we to be given access to all this material and the story of Ernest Hayball!
Ernest Edwin Hayball was baptised on April 1, 1872 in the parish church of Donyatt, Somerset, the son of Mathias Hayball, a tailor and his wife Emma.
By 1891 he had moved to Swindon and was living in Commercial Road and working as a dairyman with his brother-in-law George Parkhouse.
Ernest Edwin Hayball married Theresa Georgina Meads at St. Mark’s Church on July 19, 1899. Paul has a copy of the wedding photograph with an index of the pictured guests compiled by his mother (see below). The couple went on to have five children, Leonard, Ernest, George, Doris and Gladys (Paul’s mother).
Ernest established his own dairy business in Hythe Road, later moving to 32 Bath Terrace, which became 71 Faringdon Road after renumbering and renaming in the early 1920s.
In 1932 the local press reported on yet another successful Children’s Fete where 35,000 people had celebrated in the GWR Park opposite the Hayball business. Organised by the Mechanics’ Institute, catering for the thousands of adults in attendance was undertaken by the Swindon Town F.C. Supporters’ Club with “40lbs of tea, nearly 4 cwt of sugar, and 40 gallons of milk, the latter being supplied by Messrs E. Hayball and Sons, of Faringdon road, Swindon.”
A brief obituary in the local press following Ernest’s death in 1952 encapsulated his busy life.
Was dairyman for 50 years
Swindon Death
A former member of the committee of the Swindon Town F.C. Supporters’ Club, Mr E.E. Hayball (79), 71 Faringdon Road, Swindon, has died.
He had been in business as a dairyman for 50 years. Starting at 1 Hythe Road, he bought Mr H.J. Hulme’s business, and after staying there for nine years went into partnership with the late Mr G. Parkhouse in Commercial Road.
In 1914 he started on his own account at 71 Faringdon Road, where he continued until his death.
At one time he played skittles for Ashford Road and the Central Clubs.
He leaves three sons and two daughters.
Ernest died at his home on January 13, 1952. He was buried in grave plot E7749 with his mother Emma who was living with them at 32 Bath Terrace at the time of her death in 1918; his wife Theresa who died in 1937 and his daughter Gladys and son-in-law (Paul’s parents).
Here is a selection of Hayball family photographs published courtesy of Paul.
Ernest and Theresa’s wedding photo.
Back row 4th from left is Mathias William Beazley Hayball (father of the groom).
Middle row 6th from left standing behind the bride and groom is Emma Hayball (mother of the groom).
A family photograph celebrating Ernest and Theresa’s Silver Wedding Anniversary.
Left to right standing:- Doris, Leonard, Ernest and George
Gladys stands between her seated parents Theresa and Ernest
Ernest standing outside the shop in Hythe Road.
71 Faringdon Road
Ernest and Theresa Hayball
The Hayball family grave in Radnor Street Cemetery following the funeral of Theresa Georgina Hayball in 1937.
I used to love to go shopping. And do you know what my favourite shop was – Nash the confectioners, and not only when I was a child either. Sometimes I would call in when I was a grown up too, a young clerk in the Works, before I married and had children of my own. You don’t see sweet shops like that anymore, you don’t see sweets like that either, jars and jars of handmade confectionery.
It was a sad day when the last of the Nash family shops closed. Perhaps they couldn’t compete with the big manufacturers, the producers of those bags of gummy, plastic tasting sweets that tempt the children at the supermarket checkouts. Soulless places, those supermarkets. My granddaughter offered to take me to Asda Walmart on a shopping trip. Bah – that’s not a shopping trip, that’s a descent into Hades, I told her.
What I would give to take a walk down Regent Street again? Not the Regent Street of today but the old one, when ladies got dressed up to go down town. My first stop would be a wander around McIlroys and then a visit to Nash’s and a quarter of – now what would I choose, aniseed balls or pear drops, or maybe a bag of toffee, although my teeth are probably not up to that now. Happy days.
Regent Street
The facts …
William Nash was born on April 23, 1840 at Badbury the son of William and Jane Nash. His father died two months before William’s birth, leaving Jane to raise four young boys alone until she remarried in 1844. At the time of the 1851 census 11 year old William is living in Badbury with his mother, step-father William Jordan, his two brothers Thomas and George Nash and three half sisters Sarah, Ann and Emma Jordan.
William married at St. Mark’s Church on December 25, 1863. He was 23 and working as a labourer, his bride was 21 year old Elizabeth Hunt. The couple began their married life in London where their first child, Edmund William Nash was born. It seems likely that this is also where William saw the prospects of a career in the confectionery trade. Elizabeth’s brother and sister had both married into the Leach family, headed by Thomas Leach who had a confectionery business in Southwark.
On his return to Swindon William worked as a labourer in the railway works and Elizabeth as a mangler. In 1871 the couple lived at 2 Havelock Street with their growing family – Edmund 5, Clara 4, Thomas E. 2 and 8 month old Elizabeth M. It appears that the Nash couple were both prudent and focused, both working and saving to fulfil their ambition to open their confectionery business.
By the time of the 1881 census William had achieved this ambition. The family lived over their first shop at 32 Bridge Street. By then there were seven children, the youngest 4 month old Lily. Elizabeth’s sister Martha Hunt lived with the family working as an assistant in the shop.
And so the Nash empire expanded with shops at 64 and 65 Regent Street and 17 Regent Street as well as the original premises at 32 Bridge Street. Other family run shops opened at 104 Cricklade Road, 10 Wood Street, 32 Regent Circus and 167 Rodbourne Road, the last of the shops which eventually closed in the 1970s. The Nash family were famous for their award winning ice cream and also their bargain pack of assorted sweets – Penny Big Lots.
Death of Mr W. Nash – Mr W. Nash of Lypeatt House, Goddard Avenue, Swindon, died on October 29th after a long and painful illness. He will be remembered by many, having been formerly in business as a sweet manufacturer. He married a daughter of the late Mr Thomas Hunt, of Broad Town, who was well known in Primitive Methodist circles. He leaves a widow, six daughters and two sons. The funeral took place on Monday November 4th the cortege leaving Goddard Avenue at 3 o’clock for the Primitive Methodist Chapel, Prospect Place. The Rev. H. Pope Officiated at the chapel and also at the Cemetery.
Extracts from the North Wilts Herald, Friday, November 15, 1918.
William and Elizabeth Nash are buried together in plot E7604
Grateful thanks to Katie Brammer for sharing her family history research. Katie has been discovering the graves of her Nash family ancestors with the help of Radnor Street Cemetery volunteer Jon. This is the grave of William and Elizabeth Nash.
WANTED, a respectable GENERAL SERVANT, about 18, able to do plain cooking; sleeping out preferred; good character – Apply, Nash, Confectioner, Bridge Street, Swindon.
The Swindon Advertiser, Friday, September 2, 1904.
Radnor Street Cemetery 