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.
The Radnor Street cemetery volunteers are a versatile group. Not only do they care for the CWGC graves and identify others with a military connection, but they mow and hoe, weed and clean and also locate lost graves. Bex recently helped Liz, a visitor to Swindon, to find her great grandparents grave and in doing so revealed yet another fascinating Swindon family history.
Liz helpfully had the cemetery paperwork concerning two family graves – plots D937 and D938. These proved to be the graves of two brothers, William John and James Henry Foyle with their respective wives, Margaret Ann and Mary Jane. The brothers were two of four sons born to Isaac and Rebecca Foyle. All four sons were born and raised in Swindon and all four followed their father Isaac, a labourer in the GWR iron works, into the railway factory; William as a boiler smith, James a brass finisher, George a railway clerk and Alfred an electrical fitter. William would eventually move to Wolverhampton, but following his death he was buried next to his brother James.
James’s grave with its elegant headstone was easy to locate. See below two before and after photographs taken by Bex.
Liz was also keen to find other family graves, including those of Esther and Kate Finney. Research revealed that the two sisters were the daughters of William and Emma Finney.
Esther and Kate both served as Red Cross nurses during WWI. Esther was a volunteer at the Red Cross Hospital In Taunton in 1917 while Kate stayed closer to home and served as a Ward Helper at the Red Cross Hospital in Stratton in 1918.
In 1939 Esther, Kate and their brother William lived with their widowed mother at 11 Clifton Street. Esther is described as a Shopkeeper (Gown and Millinery) and Liz was able to provide a photograph of the shopfront.
Esther died in 1959 and Kate in 1970 and they are buried together in grave plot E8298 with their brother William who died in 1957.
The connection between the Foyle and Finney family is that Esther and Kate’s brother John Marshall Finney, married James and Mary Jane Foyle’s daughter Elsie Gladys Foyle.
Hopefully Liz will keep in touch with Bex and even more family stories will emerge.
I could see Mr Higgs next door, standing at the bottom of his garden, looking out over the old canal. He was there most mornings, just standing and staring.
I picked up my basket of laundry and opened the back door. I could spare a few minutes chatting to him while I hung out the washing.
“Morning Mr Higgs,” I called. “Bit breezy! This washing should dry quickly enough.”
He was dressed in shirt sleeves even though it was a chilly January morning. I suppose he was used to being out in all weathers. He once told me that the old locos were open to the elements; no cab over the engineman then. Life for the drivers was hard in those early days.
It was all he talked about – the old days. The journeys he had done with the Royal family, how much the job had changed over the years.
He was hungry for news from the Works, but he had few visitors. Everyone was too busy, but I tried to find a few minutes in the day to talk to him, although I couldn’t bring him the conversation he wanted.
“Fifty-two years and two months, I worked for the Company,” he proudly told me, “and an unblemished career. I’m still fit and able to work but these new rules meant I had to retire.”
I’d read the newspaper reports published when he retired at Christmas. My husband Jack told me how Mr Higgs had fought the retirement ruling, but there was nothing the Company could do.
“I think he’d have taken any job going, but it just couldn’t be.”
I wasn’t so sure about that. Mr Higgs believed he was still fit enough to drive locos and that’s what he wanted to do. I don’t think a caretaker’s job would have suited him.
He turned his back on me as I started to peg out my washing. He didn’t seem to want to chat today.
“Everything alright Mr Higgs?”
He looked across towards the railway line.
“The wind must have changed direction,” he said. “I can’t hear the trains today.” He turned around and walked slowly back up the garden path.
“I think we might have some rain. Your washing won’t dry after all.”
1950s photograph of Faringdon Road and the route of the old Wilts and Berks Canal
The facts …
Luke Higgs was born on December 3, 1834 and consistently gave his place of birth as London, Tower on census returns.
He married Margaret Beaupre in Bourne, Lincolnshire in October 1859. At the time of the 1861 census the couple were living at 20 Bath Street (now known as Bathampton Street) in the railway village, however their first child, a daughter Annie Agnes, was baptised at Holy Trinity Church, Paddington when they were living at 16 Waverley Road. The couple went on to have four more children and by 1871 the family was living at 19 Brunel Street. They soon moved to 8 College Street, their home for more than 40 years.
Luke entered the employment of the Great Western Railway in October 1852 just a few weeks before his 18th birthday. He worked first as an engine cleaner and lighter up before become a fireman in 1855. By 1861 he was working as an engineman and in a career that spanned more than 50 years.
Luke Higgs died at his home, 8 College Street, on March 12, 1913 aged 78. He left effects valued at £707 11s 3d (later resworn £642 11s 3d) to his wife. Margaret outlived him by a further twelve years. She died at 8 College Street on October 29, 1925 aged 90. They are buried together in plot D950 where they were later joined by their daughter Margaret Easley who died in 1953 and their grandson Elliott Tuckwell who died in 1967.
Retirement of a Railway Veteran
Over 50 Years’ Service
Mr Luke Higgs, of Swindon, who has just retired from his duties as driver on the Great Western Railway through the operation of the age limit of 70 years, has probably achieved a record of service, having been no less than 52 years and 2 months in the employ of the Company. It is remarkable that notwithstanding his great age he enjoys the best of health and looks a robust, able bodied man. He passed the eye sight and health test of the GWR doctor on 13 occasions, and when he passed last time his sight was exceptionally good.
Mr Higgs was born in London on December 3, 1834, his father being a noncommission officer in the Scots Fusilier Guards. Early in life he joined the service of the GWR and has grown in age with the railway, seeing many different systems in vogue during the half century. Improvements in the working of locomotives have of course come under his notice more particularly than any other, and he speaks of the time when there was no protection on the engines beyond the fire box, and no leg plates or cab, no steam pressure gauges, and no dry sand boxes. Those were hard times for enginemen, and great judgement was required to work the trains in safety.
He was fireman on the engine which took the late Prince Consort from Windsor to open Saltash Bridge in June 1857, and also filled a similar capacity on the train which conveyed the present King to Oxford, to open his college education, on Monday, Oct. 17, 1859. Not only that, but he has been fireman several times on the Royal train between Paddington and Windsor.
It is interesting to note that he was made a permanent engine driver the same day as the late Prince Consort died – December 14, 1861 – and ever since he has held a good reputation, so that when he retired there was not a black mark against his name. We are given to understand that he has the cleanest record on the Great Western line. In his career he has never lost an increase in wages or a premium, and has received from the Company £325 for good conduct whilst in their employ.
His varied experiences are of more than ordinary interest, and he modestly tells of incidents which would have turned but disastrously had it not been for his prompt actions. His advice in working trains has been frequently sought after by younger men, and many a good driver have been turned out of his engine. He was most economical in his work and studied the Company’s materials as though they were his own.
He is held in the highest esteem by all the officials with whom he came in contact, and all regret his retirement. The doctor who signed the last certificate said that Mr Higgs was well able to work for another five years, but of course the age limit had to be observed.
North Wilts Herald January 28th 1905
Luke and Margaret Higgs with one of their daughters. Published courtesy of philstree18 from a public family tree on Ancestry.
Back in the day there were flowers everywhere, right across the cemetery, displayed beneath glass domes; cultivated in the greenhouses. In 1907 the groundsmen were so busy that planning permission was sought for additional glasshouses to be built behind the caretakers lodge (see above illustration).
For those families who could not afford a headstone the flowers were a monument among the graves so densely arranged with barely a foot’s breadth between each plot.
Every grave was identified by a terracotta marker, sadly an unsatisfactory method. The system had worked well when a caretaker and gravediggers were employed in the busy cemetery but today they lie broken and scattered about. Some graves sport several of the brick like markers, others have none, and when searching for a grave they should be used with caution and only as a rough guide.
So what about the marker pictured here, found on a mound of earth. Is there a fallen headstone buried somewhere beneath? There are no clues, but it is possible to trace who was buried in plot D1083…
The facts …
The Radnor Street Cemetery burial registers reveal that there is only one person buriedin plot D1083. His name was William John Molden, a boilermaker at the Works, who died on March 3, 1919 at his home, 145 Clifton Street. He was 44 years old and his funeral took place on March 8. Administration of William’s estate was awarded to his widow, Emily and his effects were valued at £179 5s.
Without applying for William’s death certificate we cannot ascertain his cause of death. Unfortunately we do not have a budget to pay for all the death certificates we need when researching the cemetery.
William was born on February 23, 1875 in Purton, the son of Eli and Hannah Molden. He began a six year boilermaking apprenticeship in the Works on February 23, 1890 aged 15. The 1891 census lists William as a 16 year old GWR Boiler Maker Apprentice living with his parents and older brother Sidney at Battle Well, Purton.
William married Emily Painter in 1898 and at the time of the 1901 census they were living at 65 Redcliffe Street, Rodbourne with their four month old daughter Dorothy.
The family appears on the 1911 census living at 122 Clifton Street where William lists his occupation as Boilermaker Rivetter. The couple have three children, Dorothy Maud aged 10, Muriel Louise Hetty, 8 and Harold Sydney John 2. Another son, Raymond Edward Joseph was born in 1917.
William was a relatively young man when he died. Perhaps he died as a result of the post-war ‘flu epidemic which raged through Swindon as it did everywhere else.
Tomorrow I will hang up my check at V Shop for the last time. I’m looking forward to retirement with some trepidation. My body has had enough of the hard graft but I will miss my mates and the camaraderie. Fifty-five years I’ve been ‘inside.’
I left school at 13 and worked for a local builder until I could begin my apprenticeship in the Works. Some dates stick in your mind. On March 23, 1883 I was sent to join a group of labourers excavating the burial ground in Newport Street. The old Congregational Church had been demolished almost twenty years earlier, but the burial ground had been left intact, until now when the area was required for redevelopment. We were to locate and exhume the graves for reburial in the new Swindon Cemetery on Kingshill.
It had rained for most of the previous week and the clay soil was heavy and claggy and difficult to dig. You had to use a lot of force to shift the earth but all the time I was worried about what I might be disturbing. Some of the burials were more than 60 years old, the coffins rotting away. Every time my spade made any contact, I gave out an involuntary noise, something between a cry and a yelp. The men got angry with me and told me to have some respect for the dead. I was only a lad, I hadn’t known what to expect and I feared hitting a decomposed body, I tried not to look too closely, frightened of what I might see.
Eventually the foreman gave me a different job to do while the men transferred the exhumed remains to the mortuary in the cemetery. The new grave had already been dug by the cemetery Sexton.
A few weeks later I went to pay my respects at the graveside of the Strange family whose remains had been re interred. I stood by the large plot with the tall cross and made my apologies.
The facts …
The extended Strange family were prosperous members of 18th and 19th century Swindon society. They were farmers and salt and coal merchants, grocers and drapers and they even opened the first bank in the town in 1807 Strange, Garrett, Strange and Cook.
Richard Strange junior was born in 1799, the son of banker and grocer Richard senior and his wife Mary. Richard married his cousin Martha, youngest daughter of Uncle James and Aunt Sarah Strange at Holy Rood Church on January 9, 1834. Richard farmed at Mannington Farm from 1841 until his death in 1883 when his daughter Julia took overthe tenancy of the farm.
The Strange family were prominent non-conformists in the town and Martha’s father James founded the Congregational Church in Newport Street where members of the family were interred in the small burial ground. The Newport Street Church was demolished in 1866 but the burial ground remained intact for more than 15 years. However, in 1883 the graves of Richard Strange’s immediate family were exhumed for re-burial in Radnor Street Cemetery. The remains of his mother Mary who died in 1829, his father Richard who died in 1832 and his 16-year-old sister Sarah who died in 1820 along with those of Richard’s wife Martha who died in 1858 and a one-day old baby son also called Richard, were re-interred in plots E8463/4/5.
Richard Strange junior died at Mannington Farm on June 23, 1883 aged 83 and was buried in this large family plot. He left a personal estate of £4,775 1s 6d to his only daughter Julia who took over the running of the farm. Julia was buried in the family plot when she died on August 30, 1911.
A stained-glass window is dedicated to Julia in St Augustine’s Church, Rodbourne. The dedication reads ‘a devoted worker in this Parish.’
They’ll be along in a little while. I see them most days, the young man and the little girl. Sometimes they walk past me but sometimes they sit next to me on the bench. I like those days. The young man exchanges a few pleasantries, comments on the weather, that kind of thing. The little girl only talks to him. My, she’s a chatterbox. She tells him about her friends and about school and who got told off that day. She has a nasty cough, mind; some days I think she doesn’t wear enough clothes. She never wears a coat in the winter, but then the young man takes off his greatcoat and puts it around her shoulders while they sit on the bench.
But today it is summer and the sun shines on the cemetery and warms the cold earth. Yesterday she collected some flowers from one of the graves. He gently explained that she couldn’t take them and that someone had placed them there as a token of their love for the person who had died. She said she wanted to take some flowers to her mother so they picked some harebells that grew by the cemetery gate.
Here they come now. She is skipping alongside him, holding his hand. He is smiling. There is something very familiar about that smile. He reminds me of someone, but I can’t remember who. My thoughts are so muddled these days. The nurses call me Edie but I don’t think that’s my name. Tom never called me Edie. After the children came along he called me ‘ma’ like they did. I’m sure my name isn’t Edie though.
They’re not stopping at the bench today. That’s a shame. I like listening to their conversation. Never mind, there’s always tomorrow.
Evening is drawing in. Doris will be along soon. She is never far away. She knows where to find me. It’s funny, I never forget her name. Here she comes now.
“Did you see them Ma?”
“Yes. They were along earlier.”
“Did Charlie speak to you?”
“No, not today. But he did smile. Do you know him then?”
“Of course I do Ma. It’s our Charlie and little Vera.”
“He doesn’t recognise me. Why doesn’t he recognise me Doris?”
“It was a long time ago Ma. You’ve changed a lot, got older. He doesn’t recognise me either.”
“I’ll remind him who I am tomorrow. They’ll be along again tomorrow.”
“Come on Ma, it’s beginning to get dark. We should make a move. Take my arm.”
I lean heavily on her, but she never complains. She’s a good girl. She’ll make some lucky man a lovely wife. I wonder why she hasn’t got married by now. I wish I could remember these things.
The nurses call me Edie, but I’m sure that’s not my name.
The facts …
Edith Emily was born in 1876 in Gorse Hill, the daughter of John Painter, a sawyer at the GWR Works, and his wife Hannah. She married Thomas Gray, a steam engine fitter in the Works, in 1895 and at the time of the 1901 census the couple were living at 263 Cricklade Road, Gorse Hill with their two children Florence aged 4 and one year old Charles. They would go on to have a total of 11 children, the last born in 1919, a daughter Gwendoline, who died before her first birthday. Two other daughters died in the 1920s.
On the 1939 List Thomas and Edith are living at 13 Carlton Street with their daughter Irene, who works as a domestic servant and son Ronald, a van driver for a Wine and Spirit Merchant.
Thomas died in November 1941 at Carlton Street and was buried on December 3 with his two daughters in plot C1024. He was 67 years old.
Edith Emily Gray died on Christmas Day 1959 at Roundways, a psychiatric hospital in Devizes. The hospital had opened in 1851 when it was called the Wiltshire County Lunatic Asylum, changing its name to the Wiltshire County Mental Hospital in 1922 and eventually Roundways. Edith was 83 years old. She was buried on December 31, in plot C1024, with her husband and two daughters. This is a public or pauper’s grave and the Gray family members are buried with two others.
Thomas and Edith’s eldest son was Charles Herbert, born in 1899. He served with the 6th Wilts regiment from the outbreak of the First World War and was discharged from the army on March 15, 1919. Sadly his records are among those destroyed during bombing in the Second World War, but we do know what action the 6th Wilts served in and that Charles was most probably with them.
The 6th Wilts embarked for the Western Front in July 1915 as part of the 19th Division and were involved in action at Loos in September of that year. After the attack they returned to Neuve Chapelle for the remainder of 1915.
In 1916 they were engaged in training at Albert in preparation for the Somme offensive, during which they suffered 380 casualties in two months.
In 1917 the 6th Battalion saw action on the Ypres salient, Messines Ridge and Passendaele Ridge. They became the 6th (Royal Wiltshire) Yeomanry Battalion following more heavy losses.
Throughout the last year of the war the 6th (Service) Battalion were heavily engaged. They sustained heavy losses and despite reinforcements were eventually disbanded, most of the men being sent to the 2nd Battalion. They were eventually disbanded in Devizes in 1919.
During the September quarter of 1920 Charles married Ada J. Edginton and the coupled lived at 14 Haydon Street. Charles died from Pulmonary Tuberculosis on April 4, 1921 at Salisbury Hospital.* He was 22 years old. He was buried on April 9 in grave plot B2321.
The birth of Charles and Ada’s daughter, Vera Dorothy Joan was registered during the June quarter of 1921, so probably around the time of Charles’s death.
Vera died in January 1926 at the Isolation Hospital. She was four years old. She is buried in Radnor Street Cemetery in plot C569, a public grave which she shares with eight others.
*Paul Cook kindly obtained the death certificate for Charles Herbert Gray.
History of the 6th Wilts taken from The Wardrobe – Home of the Infantry Regiments of Berkshire & Wiltshire.
I quite like what they’ve done to the place, especially the wallpaper in the front parlour. I could never have afforded that when we lived there.
The thing I notice most is how clean everywhere is. In my day it was a constant battle against the filth pumped out of the Works and the coal smuts from the trains. If the wind changed direction the washing would be covered in grime when I took it off the line.
I preferred our home in Box, but it was only a small village in those days. There were more opportunities for the boys in Swindon, so we moved here. It was a dirty, noisy place back in the 60s but the people were good and kind. When John died more than two hundred people lined the roads from Faringdon Street to St Mark’s.
I like to pop back to the house occasionally. It’s open to the public now, you know. Who would have thought it?
The facts …
Jane Bennet married John Hall at New Monkland, Lanarkshire in June 1840 when John was working as an engine driver with the Wishaw and Coltness Railway in Scotland.
At the time of the 1851 census the family were living in Box, Wiltshire but by the next census ten years later they were at 1 Faringdon Street.
John died on Tuesday, February 29, 1876 as the result of a grisly accident on the railways. At the inquest his son James gave the following evidence:
‘James Hall, son of deceased, said:- My father was 65 years of age last August. On Tuesday morning, about 25 minutes after two, I was at the station with him as his stoker to pilot the up rails out. We were there in case of the other engine breaking down. There were four coaches in front of our engine, which we were going to push on to the rails.Whilst waiting, the gauge lamp went out, and my father went to the front of the engine to light it by the other lamp. As he was returning along the side of the engine the signalman signalled us to come on, and I blew the whistle and started just as my father had another step to take to get back, and, in fact, had his hand on the weather board. He was walking along the side of the engine. As he was about to step on the foot plate his foot slipped and he fell, his right leg going between the outside connecting rod and the wheel. I had only moved about a yard. The rod brought him up again against the splasher, causing his leg to be jammed and the flesh torn off. The first I knew of his position was my father calling out, ”Stop Jim,” and I stopped immediately. I got down and found he was fixed inside the rod, and he was terribly torn about. It took a considerable time to get him out. He was taken to the hospital at once.’
John died from the shock about four o’clock the same day. As the report said: ‘The injuries were sufficient to kill anyone, the flesh being taken off to the bone.’
The funeral at St Mark’s took place on the following Sunday, a wet and windy dayattended by ‘a large number of the inhabitants, many engine drivers and stokers from various parts of the Great Western Railway. We understand that free passes were issued to all such drivers and stokers as desired to attend the funeral, and in this way over ninety of deceased’s fellow workmen were enabled to attend his funeral to pay their last respects to his memory,‘ according to the Swindon Advertiser.
Jane outlived her husband by ten years. She died on January 22, 1886 at the home in Faringdon Street where she had lived for more than twenty five years. She was buried in Radnor Street Cemetery in plot A1047, a public grave, with Jane Humphreys, the wife of Alfred Augustus Humphreys of 9 Bangor Terrace, Jennings Street, who had died the previous year.
Faringdon Street was later renumbered and renamed Faringdon Road. Today the Hall’s former home is 34 Faringdon Road, the Railway Village Museum.
Everyone with the name Jefferies wanted to tell us their memories of the man, even those who were unrelated and had never met him. The Swindon Advertiser had already published a fulsome obituary notice on the local writer Richard Jefferies but Mr Morris wanted me to come up with something more, something from a different perspective.
I did a bit of research and discovered that Mrs Jefferies sisters lived in town, so I made an appointment to visit them.
Mrs Jefferies came from a large farming family. Her father had married twice and produced some fourteen children. Mrs Jefferies was the eldest of the second family. The sisters who lived at 20 Sheppard Street hailed from the first family and were considerably older than the recently widowed Jessie Jefferies.
Mrs Jefferies, the former Jessie Baden
I was greeted at the front door of the red brick villa by Miss Blanche Baden who introduced herself as niece and companion to the Misses Baden. The two sisters were waiting for me in the parlour.
The ladies were dressed in the old country fashion and were frail and elderly. Miss Mary, the younger of the two, spoke for her sister Miss Emma, explaining that she had been deaf and dumb since birth.
Looking out across the road to the looming railway factory, Miss Mary talked about a childhood spent at Day House Farm and their near neighbours, the Jefferies family who lived on the farm at Coate.
In pride of place on the bookcase was a set of Jefferies books. I was invited to select a volume, each one a first edition, inscribed by their famous brother-in-law.
I wrote what I thought was an interesting piece about the Misses Baden and their literary legacy, but Mr Morris didn’t like it. I had missed the point of the exercise, I was told. He’d wanted more insight into Jefferies ambition, the political motivation of the man and what had driven him, not a non-story about two old ladies who had done nothing of note.
It was then that I decided the Swindon Advertiser was not the vehicle for my work and that I would devote my life to writing about the lives of women who had supposedly ‘done little of note.’
Richard Jefferies
The facts …
Death of a Distinguished Wiltshire Man
A large circle of readers will be sorry to hear that Mr Richard Jefferies died at Goring on Sunday morning. He will be known to all classes of readers as the author of a charming series of books and fugitive articles on rural life and kindred subjects, that were as interesting to dwellers in town as to those in the country. He united to a singularly close insight into the natural workings of animal and vegetable life a power of description almost unrivalled. His books and articles were redolent of the air of the country, and dealt with nature in so picturesque and graphic a style that the dweller in a city might almost fancy himself in the midst of the scenes described. These scenes were mostly taken from his native county of Wiltshire. The son of a farmer, he soon fell to writing on his favourite subjects in local journals. He soon, however, went to London, where he at once made himself a name as a writer of books and contributor of essays to magazines and periodical literature. Many will remember the delightful freshness of “The Gamekeeper at Home,” which introduced him to the London public about ten years ago. This was followed at short intervals by “Wild Life in a Southern County,” “Round about a Great Estate,” “Hodge and his Masters,” “Nature near London,” “The Life of the Fields,” “Red Deer,” and “The Open Air,” the last of which was published two years ago. Mr Jefferies also wrote a number of works of fiction, which are certainly not so well known – and perhaps deservedly so – as his pictures on country scenes. Thus between 1874 and the present year he published “The Scarlet Shawl,” “Restless Human Hearts,” “World’s End,” “Greene Fern Farm,” “Wood Magic,” “Bevis, the story of a Boy,” “The Dewy Morn,” “After London, or Wild England,” and “Amaryllis at the Fair,” the last in the present year. Also he wrote in 1883 a work of great interest entitled “The Story of my Heart, an Autobiography.”
Extract from The Swindon Advertiser, Saturday, August 20, 1887.
Emma Jane Baden aged 76 years of 20 Sheppard Street was buried on March 24, 1894 in grave plot E7206. Mary Hannah Baden aged 79 years of 15 Avenue Road was buried with her sister on November 27, 1907.
I really didn’t want to visit Miss Blount. I liked her well enough; she was a kind, patient teacher, but she was dying. We all knew it. She had been ill for a long time and this would probably be the last time anyone other than her family would be invited to visit.
As the senior pupil teacher I was selected to deliver the presents the children had produced. The infants had drawn pictures while the older children had written diary entries telling her what was happening at school. The girls in Standard IV had baked a Victoria Sandwich cake, named after the Queen who was known to have a sweet tooth. My contribution was a bunch of dahlias grown in my dad’s greenhouse.
The Blount family lived at 14 Park Lane. I expected the house to be shrouded and shuttered, the family sombre and in premature mourning, but it wasn’t like that at all. Miss Blount was sitting in the sheltered back garden where her mother served the tea. The flowers were placed in a cut glass vase and set upon the garden table while both ladies exclaimed over the lightness of the sponge cake. The younger children’s pictures caused much delight and the diary entries were pored over with great interest.
Our little tea party was so relaxed and jolly that I began to think perhaps the reports of Miss Blount’s ill health had been exaggerated. Then suddenly she was overcome by a paroxysm of coughing, and her mother rushed to her side. When eventually the attack subsided I noticed the handkerchief she held to her mouth was spotted with blood. She looked exhausted and Mrs Blount thanked me for calling, which I took to be my cue to leave.
Miss Blount was very pretty and so young, just 27, but of course as a 14 year old school girl I didn’t truly appreciate the sorrow.
There’s a beautiful monument on her grave, a floating angel, delivering her soul to heaven. When I visit my parents’ grave I take some flowers for Miss Blount. She told me she thought the dahlias were a cheerful flower, that day of the tea party.
The facts …
Eleanor Marian Blount was born in Hereford, the eldest of William and Ann Blount’s eight children, but she was not the first to die.
William married Ann Lane on August 6, 1866 at St Peter’s, Hereford. They moved to Swindon in about 1868 where William started work as a Moulder in the railway factory. Their first home was in Havelock Street in 1869 before they moved to 43 Cheltenham Street. Their third child, Mary Emma Blount was born in Cheltenham Street but died at 8 months old. She was buried on August 22, 1871 in the churchyard at St Mark’s. In 1881 the family were living at 22 Cheltenham Street and by 1891 they were living at 14 Park Lane.
Three of their children went on to become teachers, Eleanor, Lily and Edgar. William John Lane Blount turned up in the US sometime around 1888-91. George followed his father in the Works as a Brass Finisher, but later he also emigrated to the US. Alexander (Henry) Blount worked as a mechanical engineer in the railway factory. Youngest son Frederick Walter, also worked in the railway factory as a fitter.
William died on April 27, 1913 aged 69. Ann survived him by more than twenty years. She died in 1934 aged 87. They were buried with their daughter Eleanor in a large double plot E8158/8159.
As children my brother and I thought our granddad lived in a museum. His house was packed full of stuff; ornaments on every surface, paintings, prints and photographs and books, so many books.
Inside the house we had to manoeuvre our way around, careful not to knock anything over, but fortunately for us there was a long back garden where we played, whatever the weather. We were even allowed inside the shed if it was lashing down with rain.
The shed was a microcosm of the house, but without the china. There were racks and racks of old fashioned tools but no one seemed to worry that we might sever a limb or drive nails into each others eyes.
One day we found a wooden model train in a box under the workbench. I remember how we stared at one another apprehensively. It looked like a toy, but could we play with it or was it another museum piece? We just didn’t know. We decided we would play with it, only very carefully, and if it got broken we would say it was like that when we found it.
It was actually pretty robust. Not big enough to sit on, although we tried that, but sturdy. The wheels turned and the bell on the front moved, but that was about it really. We sat our Action Men in the cab and created war time scenarios, but there wasn’t a lot you could do with it really.
Clearing granddad’s house after he died was a nightmare. Our poor parents spent weeks and weeks at the job. I would have liked longer to go through it all, but there just wasn’t the time and I couldn’t store anything in my small, one bed flat.
The shed was one of the last things we tackled and this yielded some of the biggest surprises. The tools my brother and I had looked upon as instruments of torture turned out to be real museum pieces, some of them dating back to the 18th century.
When I saw the train for the first time in years I realised it was a model of the famous King George V loco made in the Swindon Works in 1927. Perhaps the owner of the tools, or one of his descendants had made the model. Sadly there was no way of finding out who. The Carriage and Wagon Works employed hundreds of skilled carpenters and throughout its history Swindon had numbered countless building firms, large and small.
As we bagged and boxed and dumped so much of granddad’s treasure I wondered how he had come by it all, especially those tools. And who had made the model of the King George V loco, which now sits on the coffee table in my lounge.
The facts …
This memorial was revealed several years ago during a major bramble clearance exercise in Radnor Street Cemetery by Swindon Borough Council.
This is the final resting place of Sarah Leighfield, her husband William and their son-in-law James George Plank.
Sarah was born in Swindon in c1851 and married William Leighfield in 1871. William was born in Wootton Bassett in c1851 the eldest son of James and Ann Leighfield.
By the time of the 1911 census William and Sarah were living at 91 Curtis Street with four of their children. William, aged 61, was by then working as a Wood Sawyer in the railway works. His son Robert was a Coach Painter in Motor Works, Alfred and Albert were both House Decorators and Ernest also worked as a Coach Painter.
His younger brother Richard James Leighfield established a successful construction business at 1 Witney Street. In 2015 the Royal Wootton Bassett based firm celebrated their 130th anniversary.
Sarah died in April 1911 and was buried on April 13 in plot E7339. William died in June 1915 and was buried with his wife on June 9. The last person to be buried in this plot was their son-in- law James George Plank, their daughter Emily’s husband. J.G. Plank died at St Margaret’s Hospital on July 3, 1955.
The King George V Loco, designed by Charles B. Collett and built in the Swindon Works in 1927, was the prototype for Great Western Railway’s (GWR) King class. It was the first of a thirty strong fleet built in Swindon from 1927-1930 to meet the demands of rising passenger numbers and heavier carriages.
Life’s circumstances can create some unusual friendships. In the case of Mrs Peddle and me it was the death of our husbands.
We didn’t have a lot in common. Mrs Peddle had money and I didn’t. I had a houseful of children and she had none.
I don’t think she much enjoyed living in Swindon. She told me she was born in a village called Keinton Mandeville in Somerset and she was a country girl at heart. Her back garden was full of old fashioned country flowers like night scented stock and grandmother’s bonnet. My garden was always full of washing.
I’d never known anywhere other than Swindon. I’d been born in the railway village and lived there until I got married. My dad was a railwayman and so was his dad and just about all the boys I grew up with ended up working in the railway factory. My husband Fred was a steam hammerman.
I don’t know why Mr and Mrs Peddle moved to Swindon in the first place. Mr Peddle had worked as a house painter and decorator. Perhaps he looked at all those red brick terrace houses and thought there would be plenty of work for him, but of course everyone took care of their own properties in those days. Few of us had the money for an interior decorator. So like every other man in town, Mr Peddle found himself sucked into the railway works.
Mrs Peddle would come across to my house most afternoons. She seemed to enjoy the noise and chaos the children created and I was grateful for someone to hold the baby while I caught up with some household jobs.
Then afterwards we’d have a cup of tea and we’d talk. We’d talk about really personal stuff, things I’d never spoken to anyone else about. She told me why she’d never had any children and I told her why I had so many.
Before the year was out I married William, one of Fred’s friends, and moved into his house in Clifton Street. He had lost his wife around the same time Fred died. I needed a breadwinner and he needed a mother for his children. More kids! And we soon had one of our own together.
After that I only saw Mrs Peddle occasionally. The intimacy of those few months in 1911 was gone. I’m not sure that either of us wanted to be reminded about some of those confidences we shared.
It’s a funny old world. Death drew us together but life pulled us apart.
The facts …
Emily Jane Louisa was baptised on August 27, 1865 at the parish church in Keinton Mandeville, Somerset, the daughter of John Cox, a labourer and his wife Matilda. Emily worked as a dressmaker until her marriage to James Peddle in the September quarter of 1887.
At the time of the 1891 census James was recorded as living at No. 12 York Place, Swindon, where he worked as a painter and glazier. On census night 1891 Emily was staying with her widowed mother back home in Keinton. By 1901 James and Emily were living at 76 Radnor Street, their home for more than ten years. On the 1911 census James is described as a house painter employed by the railway company. James and Emily hadbeen married for 23 years and had no children.
James died on August 4, 1911 and was buried in plot D1473 on August 9.
In 1916 Emily married widower John Parker, a carpenter who worked in the railway factory. His wife Eliza had died in December 1914. John and Emily lived at 33 Wellington Street.
It was a brief marriage as Emily died on November 15, 1919. She was buried on November 21 with her first husband James Peddle in plot D1473.
John Parker outlived Emily by more than 30 years. He died on November 17, 1952 and was buried with his first wife Eliza in plot D1302, not too far from James and Emily.
John and Eliza Parker share their grave with their grandson Alan Parker who died in 1931 aged 8 years old.
Image published courtesy of Robin Earle taken in the 1980s.
The Strange family were prominent non-conformists in the town and Martha’s father James founded the Congregational Church in Newport Street where members of the family were interred in the small burial ground. The Newport Street Church was demolished in 1866 but the burial ground remained intact for more than 15 years. However, in 1883 the graves of Richard Strange’s immediate family were exhumed for re-burial in Radnor Street Cemetery. The remains of his mother Mary who died in 1829, his father Richard who died in 1832 and his 16-year-old sister Sarah who died in 1820 along with those of Richard’s wife Martha who died in 1858 and a one-day old baby son also called Richard, were re-interred in plots E8463/4/5.
Radnor Street Cemetery 