Gloucester Cathedral and the Hyett family

Considering Gloucester is pretty much on my doorstep I don’t know why I’ve never visited the cathedral before. I emerged from College Court, the medieval way once called Craft’s Lane and Ironmongers Row, to arrive at St Michael’s Gate, a pedestrian gateway in the former precinct wall of the Benedictine Abbey of St. Peter, now the Cathedral. Today the Cathedral Green is a pleasant garden with street furniture telling the Cathedral’s story. Originally a graveyard within the Abbey grounds, from the 1920s until 2018 this area was a car park!

The Cathedral itself is stunning, particularly the cloisters which were used during the filming of the Harry Potter films. But of course it was the memorials I had come to see, and there were plenty of them.

In 2015 during investigative work as part of the 10 year Project Pilgrim, one of the ledgerstones in the north transept gave up its unexpected secret. When the stone was lifted it revealed through a hole a brick built family vault below, complete with intact coffins.

The ledger stone records the date of death of Benjamin and Elizabeth Hyett, and tragically eight of their children.

Sarah 1692 0

William 1706 26

Mary 1712 23

John 1682 4

Mary 1682 22 days

Elizabeth 1683 2

Robert 1683 8 months

Joseph 1686 5

Benjamin Hyett was a lawyer who served as Deputy Clerk of the Peace for Gloucestershire from 1673-78 and then as Clerk of the Peace from 1678-89. The Assizes and Quarter Sessions took place in Booth Hall, the old Shire Hall in Westgate Street. His duties would have been to officiate at the Court of Assizes, prepare indictments and record the proceedings. He may also have been required to give legal advice to the justices along with a number of other duties.

Benjamin married Elizabeth Morwent, the daughter of Joseph Morwent of Tetbury, Gent and his wife Mary, on August 10, 1674 at St Mary’s Church, Tetbury.

It is likely the family lived in the Westgate Street area of Gloucester, within reach of Benjamin’s place of work and close to the church of St Michael’s where they had five of their children baptised between 1677-1685; Robert, Sara, Elizabeth, John and Joseph.

In his Will made on March 7, 1707 Benjamin mentions four children, the sole survivors from a family of twelve. He makes his eldest son Charles executor of his Will and leaves him all his freehold estate. To his son Benjamin he leaves £500 and to his daughter Elizabeth £1,500. He leaves his daughter Mary an annuity of £50 a year.

Benjamin was buried in the vault beneath the north transept on March 22, 1711, joining his wife Elizabeth and seven of their children (Mary, mentioned in her father’s Will, died in 1712), his father-in-law Joseph Morwent who died in 1704 aged 82 and his brother-in-law (Elizabeth’s brother) who died in 1675 aged 20 years old. In 1731 the vault was opened again for the interment of Edward James, the husband of Benjamin and Elizabeth’s daughter, and their only son Thomas James who died aged 9 years old. Elizabeth James died in 1739 aged 51, and presumably this was the last time the vault was opened until the investigations 276 years later.

I shall be returning with more stories from Gloucester Cathedral.

The Hyett family vault

Heritage Open Day event

As part of the Heritage Open Days event this September, I will be conducting short, guided churchyard walks at St. Mary’s Church, Lydiard Park. These will take place at 2pm and 3pm Saturday September 11 (today) and Sunday September 12 (tomorrow) and at the same time next weekend Saturday 18 and Sunday 19 September.

This memorial, just inside the churchyard gates, records the burial of Jonas Clarke who died on March 31, 1862 aged 74. The names of his two young grandchildren Cordelia Ann Carey and her brother Jonas Carey are also mentioned although they are not recorded in the burial registers so it is possible they were buried elsewhere.

Jonas was born in Minety in 1787 where he spent his early adult life. He married Elizabeth Fitchew in 1816 but the marriage proved to be unsuccessful and by 1818 he had entered into a relationship with Alice Pinnell. The couple had seven children but had to wait more than thirty years for the death of Elizabeth before they could marry.

Their children were baptised at All Saints’ Church, Oaksey and St Michael’s, Brinkworth and took the names Clarke Pinnell. Various Clarke Pinnell marriages took place at St. Mary’s, Lydiard Tregoze including a double wedding on May 4, 1841 when Sarah Clark Pinnell married Thomas Hall, a yeoman from Broad Blunsdon and her sister Jane married Francis Carey, a yeoman, also from Broad Blunsdon. The girls’ parents Jonas and Alice were eventually able to marry at St. Mary’s in 1853.

Jonas Clarke, farmed at Wick Farm just beyond the entrance to Lydiard Park, next to the Rectory, from about 1839 until his death in 1862, when his son Jonas Jnr took over. Farm accounts dated 1869 reveal that during the month of June, Wick Farm produced an average of three cheeses a day, over 90 in total during that month. In October of the same year there were 110 cheeses in the cheese room weighing over three tons.

The area around St. Mary’s church and Lydiard House was developed in the 1980s and 90s when street names were often taken from ancient field names. Two fields on Wick Farm called Green Down and the Green Down Mead were adopted for the new Secondary School. (The school has since changed its name to Lydiard Park Academy). The Prinnells estate takes its name from one of the Wick Farm fields, as does the area known as Freshbrook.

Avebury – West Kennet Avenue

Visitors walking around the Avebury landscape today can only wonder at its significance and marvel at its continued survivial. Burial ground is now at a premium but back in the Bronze Age there was no such problem. The Avebury area was a desirable and important site for burials and evidence remains in the surrounding countryside. A hundred round burial mounds have been identified, some raised over an individual burial others over multiple occupancy graves, many of them ploughed almost flat during agricultural activity across the millennia.

Travelling the West Kennet Avenue is a journey back through time, despite the busy roads which run parallel. Approximately a third of the avenue is flanked by pairs of stones, one diamond shaped, one straight and it has been suggested that these shapes may represent the female and male form. This avenue continues for more than a mile and a half from the southern entrance of the Avebury henge to a double stone circle on Overton Hill, now known as the Sanctuary. Built more than 4,000 years ago, the burial of a young man was discovered here, next to one of the stones.

Nearby West Kennet Long Barrow is the longest of around fourteen long barrows in the Avebury area and is believed to have been constructed in around 3700 BC. It has been excavated just twice, once in 1859 and again in the 1950s. West Kennet Barrow contains five chambers linked by a corridor and contains a total of 36 burials.

But there was another type of burial at Avebury, which is both surprising and shocking to the modern visitor – the burial of the stones. Across the centuries some of the stones were destroyed for practical purposes – to make more easily workable agricultural land and to provide building material – but less obvious and more intriguing is the burial of numerous stones. There was a time, probably from the 5th century through to the turbulent religious Tudor period, when the stones were regarded as a shameful relic of our pagan past and the theory is that the residents of Avebury were encouraged to bury theirs.

William Stukeley, an 18th century antiquarian first recorded that stones at Avebury had been buried in great pits. Then two nineteenth century clergymen A.C. Smith and W.C. Lucas came to the same conclusions and in the 1930s Avebury resident Alexander Keiller went a step further. Keiller was responsible for excavating and re-erecting 50 stones in the henge and the West Kennet Avenue.

Despite the throng of visitors and the persistent traffic, Avebury retains its mystical and mesmerising atmosphere and one blog visit is nowhere near enough. See tomorrow’s instalment for my visit to St. James’s churchyard.

Angels – of the stone variety

James John Wiltshire (3)

The re-imagined story …

I still visit the cemetery angels once in a while, just to check up on them. There are a couple that are badly damaged but I still like to pay my respects. They were a great comfort to me when I used to doss in the cemetery.

My usual pitch was a bender under the bushes near the Polish doctor’s grave. Sometimes I’d go down by the hedge that backed onto Fairview but it was too close to the houses and people used to report me.

I tried getting into the little building at the top of the cemetery but it was boarded up too well. The druggies used to go round the back there, but I didn’t want to get involved with any of that shit, I had enough of my own to get on with.

I’ve met a few angels since then – of the flesh and blood variety. There was Lesley who found me a room in a hostel and Steve who got me on to a counselling programme. I can do without the booze now, well most the time I can.

I don’t know a lot about my own family. I turned out to be a big disappointment to my mum and dad. Never did the right thing, not even as a kid. I know they were ashamed of me, they told me so often enough. I was lazy, had no backbone, no morals.

These days there’s a big emphasis on mental wellbeing, but my parents were of a different generation, obviously, but you know what I mean. They’d lived through a world war, they didn’t have a lot of time for mental wellbeing or depression and anxiety.

One of the angels I like to visit is down on the lower section of the cemetery on the way to the Clifton Street gates. She’s a particular favourite of mine. I wonder why we always think of angels as female. After all, the archangels were all male, Gabriel and Michael; and Lucifer, well he had to be a male. That’s about all I can name. It’s a bit like Santa’s reindeers, after Rudolph and Donner and Blitzen, who are the others?

This little angel is tucked into a window-like space in the stonework, a young angel knelt on one knee praying, her wings following the curve of the opening. Is there such a thing as a young angel, or an old one come to that? I suppose you get cherubs, but they are usually chubby, babylike figures with short curly hair. No, this one is definitely a young angel, her little hands clasped together and her bare toes peeping out from her dress.

Well, that little angel got me thinking. The inscription on the headstone is to an old couple. James John Wiltshire who died in 1938 aged 78 and his wife Jessie Charlotte who died in 1954 aged 90 and I got to wondering who had chosen the headstone.

I even went up to the crematorium where they hold all the burial registers. Of course, I could tell they thought I was a nutter, but fair play to them they were very kind and helpful. A young woman looked up the grave details for me and what a surprise we both had.

Before the Wiltshire family bought the grave for old James and Jessie, it had been a public grave and buried beneath them were four little children. Charles and Louisa Wright, who both died as babies in 1900 and 1901 and Amy and Vera Taylor who had died in 1900 and 1906.

We looked at each other in silence.

I wonder if the Wiltshire family knew all this when they bought the plot; now that little angel makes sense to me. I like to think of her praying for the little children who never had a life, and it helps me cling on to making some value out of mine.

The facts …

James John and Jessie Charlotte Wiltshire lived at 36 St Margarets Road at the time of James’s death in 1938 and Jessie continued to live there until her death in 1954. The 1939 list, available on Ancestry, reveals that Jessie was living with Emily B. Warren, also a widow and quite possibly her sister.

The children …

Charles Tilley and Louisa Caroline H. Wright were the children of Thomas and Mary Ann Wright. Thomas worked as a Smith’s striker in the railway factory. The couple were originally from London but moved to the Swindon area in about 1890. Louisa appears on the 1901 census as a one month old infant, the youngest of eight children still living at home in Byron Street with their parents. Born in between census years little Charles doesn’t appear on official records other than the birth and death indices and the burial registers.

Amy Blanche Taylor was born on January 16, 1900 and baptised on February 11 at St Augustine’s Church. She was the daughter of George Taylor, a clerk in the Works, and his wife Blanche who lived at 67 Dean Street.

Vera Grace was born in 1904 and was also baptised at St Augustine’s. By then the family had moved to 14 Jennings Street. She died in 1906.

By 1911 the little family had prospered and were living in Goddard Avenue. The census returns for that year include not only the details of their two living children, Raymond George 10 and Gladys Elsie 4, but the two children who had died, Amy Blanche 3 months and Vera Grace 2 years. The names had been crossed through. It was enough for official purposes just to state how many children had died.

Blanche died in 1918 and was buried in plot E8376 on March 28. George outlived her by more than forty years. He died in 1959 and was buried with his wife on April 2. Their grave is on the opposite side of the cemetery from their two little daughters.

James John Wiltshire (2)

James John Wiltshire

Summer Solstice Musings

Today let’s celebrate the summer loveliness of the cemetery where swathes of daisies and long legged buttercups and clouds of lacey cow parsley float among the gravestones.

Radnor Street Cemetery closed to new burials in the 1970s and after that interments could only take place where there was space in an existing family grave. This still applies today where burials are most usually those of cremated remains.

In 2005 the cemetery was designated a local nature reserve and the value of this area was widely promoted. Bird and bat boxes were erected and areas of grass were left to grow long to provide habitat for insects. Led by Swindon Ranger’s team and members of a community gardening group called LEAVES a pond was created in what was to be a wildlife memorial garden. It was hoped that the installation of a water feature would encourage dragonflies, newts and frogs and would enhance the biodiversity of the cemetery site.

Sadly, local government cutbacks and the diminishing number of Rangers saw these plans falter, but a growing team of new volunteers is now at work in the cemetery on a regular basis. Their initial interest was to keep the area around the Commonwealth War Graves clear and accessible but in recent months they have extended their work to other graves, revealing yet more fascinating Radnor Street Cemetery stories.

In Loving Memory of a Name

The re-imagined story …

I was in my last year at school in 1983, trying to decide what I wanted to do with the rest of my life. I knew I definitely didn’t want to go into the Works like my dad, but then it looked as if the days of the mighty railway factory were numbered anyway. It had to be something interesting, something exciting.

What I would really have liked was to join XTC. For those of you who missed the 70s and early 80s for whatever reason, there was punk and prog pop, new wave and New Romantics and, if you came from Swindon, there was XTC.

What was it about them I liked? Was it their sense of fantasy and psychedelic wonderment, to steal a quip from founder member Andy Partridge? Or was it because they were cool and came from Swindon? It was exciting to know that the members of the band had walked the same streets I had. As Andy once said, ‘Swindon was a bit shit but there are worse places and everyone has to come from somewhere.’

I knew I didn’t have any musical talent, but I was sure there was a job I could do as part of the XTC entourage; a technician or press officer, or maybe a photographer, something like that.

In the summer of 1983 word went around school that the members of XTC would be filming a music video somewhere in Swindon for a track on their upcoming album. It came as no real surprise that they should chose the old cemetery, just the crazy kind of thing they would do. Here was my opportunity.

There was no special treatment for the guys the day they filmed at Radnor Street Cemetery. I was among a handful of fans there and as long as we kept out of the way, no one seemed to mind.

This would be my first foray into photography. I had a goodish camera, a present from my granddad. I got what I anticipated would be a couple of good shots of Colin wandering among the graves, looking contemplative and rock starry and several of Dave and Andy dressed in military uniforms and misbehaving in the background.

The cameraman spent a long-time getting shots of individual headstones and memorials, in particular a magnificent guardian angel, which became the opening shot of the video.

It was several weeks before my film came back from Boots the Chemist.

Even now, more than 30 years later, I can remember the heart squeezing disappointment as I opened the envelope and looked at the prints. My first photographic assignment, a total disaster. But as Colin blurred across the foreground, an image appeared in the background, close to the old mortuary building. At first, I assumed it must be the indistinct image of another fan, out for a glimpse of the band, but I began to see the outline of what looked to be a soldier, head bowed, wearing an old-fashioned army uniform and a tin helmet. He carried a kit bag on his back and held a rifle at his side. It was the silhouette of a Tommy from the First World War, there, but not there.

A.C. Ellis (1)

No one could see what I could see, not my parents, not my friends. And after a time I could no longer see the invisible soldier.

In Loving Memory of Name was written by Colin Moulding, but it turns out it wasn’t among his favourites in the band’s back catalogue. He was to later describe it as being about “moping ‘round a graveyard and just remembering the lives of the people there.”

It was several years before I returned to Radnor Street Cemetery. I stood in the place where I had watched Dave Gregory and Andy Partridge and taken my photographs. And then I walked around to the old mortuary building where I imagined I had seen the First World War soldier, there but not there.

I noticed for the first time the official Commonwealth War Graves headstone, discoloured and dirty. The inscription read Sapper A.C. Ellis, Royal Engineers, 24^th September 1918 Age 19.

This image has an empty alt attribute; its file name is arthur-ellis.jpg

The Mummer album came after a long XTC hiatus. I recently returned to the cemetery after my own period in the wilderness. The guardian angel still looks good. And someone has propped up against the war grave headstone a small photograph of the young soldier.

There, but not there. Photograph published courtesy of Andy Binks.

The facts …

Arthur Cecil Ellis was born in Swindon in 1899 the only surviving son of Thomas George Ellis, an engineer in the railway works, and his wife Annie Maria. He was baptised at St. Mark’s, the church in the railway village, on February 20, 1899 and for all his young life he lived at 38 Farnsby Street.

Arthur Cecil Ellis served in ‘C’ Company of the 6^th Reserve Battalion of the Royal Engineers. The 6^th Reserve Battalion was located at Irvine and was formed in January 1918 from what had been the reserve Field Companies grouped in Scottish Command.

Arthur died on September 24, 1918, according to the UK Register of Soldiers’ Effects 1901-1929 at Kilmarnock Hospital where he had £3 2s 9d (about £3.20) in pay owing to him, which would go to his mother Annie.

His body was returned to the family home at 38 Farnsby Street and he was buried at Radnor Street Cemetery on October 1^st.

More than 50 years later, in the summer of 1969, Arthur’s sister, Dorothy, who worked as a dressmaker when Arthur went to war, died aged 74 and was buried with the teenage brother lost during the final weeks of the First World War.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qC-PxpywwjA&list=RDqC-PxpywwjA&start_radio=1

Comrades of the Great War

The re-imagined story …

I stood in front of the Baptist Tabernacle and watched the crowds gather, ten, twelve, fifteen deep in some places, packing all the approaches to the Town Hall.

Hundreds upon hundreds of people had come to pay their respects. Grieving parents stood next to those who had welcomed home their shattered sons, everyone touched by the horror of four long years of war.

Soldiers on crutches, soldiers with no obvious injuries. Widows holding the hands of little children, who even at such a young age appreciated the solemnity of the occasion.

Gathered immediately around the shrouded war memorial were the Mayor and civic dignitaries standing next to members of the clergy from the various Swindon congregations. Alongside detachments of the local military units were a group of Boy Scouts and Girl Guides, all standing to attention.

I went to school with the Preater brothers. I was in the same class as Bert, the youngest. Six sets of brothers were lost from Sanford Street School and I knew them all. Reginald Corser, an Engine Room Artificer who died on board HMS Defence in 1916. His brother Horace died on the Western Front two years later.

The Leggett brothers both served with the Wilts 1^st Battalion and died within three months of each other in 1915. Bill was shot through the stomach. He was 22 years old. Ern was also killed in action. He was 21.

I went to school with the Preater brothers and Bill and Ern Leggett and the Corser brothers, but I didn’t go to war with them. The British Army wouldn’t have me. I tried to enlist twice, but each time I failed the medical.

The ladies used to wait outside the Works with their white feathers. I keep mine in an envelope in my sock drawer.

And then it was time for the service to begin. The Mayor unveiled the Cenotaph as the Last Post was sounded.

The band of the Comrades of the Great War played the introduction to the hymn “Nearer my God, to Thee” and a great swell of voices carried the words heavenwards on that serene and sunny day in October 1920.

After the prayers the short service closed with another hymn, “For all the saints who from their labours rest” and as the voices stilled, relatives made their way to the war memorial to lay their flowers. The silence only broken by the sound of sobs. How many more tears could we shed?

Mrs Preater leaned heavily on the arm of her son John, the only one of four who went to war and returned home. She looked frail. Three sons lost and no grave to visit for any of them.

The war had been over for almost two years but for families like the Preater’s it would never be over.

It took a long time for the crowd to disperse. People were reluctant to leave this place, this time.

I stood and watched and wondered how I could continue to face the men who had returned home broken. The war casualties continued long after the armistice.

I am writing my memories of that day. Maybe in the future someone will be interested. At the moment I can’t see a future.

These words were found with a white feather in an envelope in his sock drawer.

The Preater family grave in Radnor Street Cemetery

The facts …

Buried in this grave are Charles and Mary Jane Preater, their daughter Hilda who died in 1907 and John Edward Preater, the son who survived the First World War.

A memorial to the three sons who died stands on the grave.

Arthur Benjamin Preater was born in 1886 and served in the 2^nd battalion of the Wiltshire Regiment. The battalion had been involved in the Somme battles since July 8, 1916. On October 18 they were in the line along with the 2^nd Liverpool, 2^nd Manchester Pals and the 2^nd Yorks and attacked the German positions not far from Flers. The attack was not successful and the battalion reported casualties of 14 officers and 350 other ranks. Arthur was among those killed. He is remembered on the Thiepval memorial and has no known grave.

Charles Lewis Preater was born in 1889 and served in the 6^th battalion of the Wiltshire Regiment. In April 1918 the 6^th were in the Messines area of Belgium about seven miles from Ypres. The 2^nd part of the great German offensive took place on the night of the 9/10 and the objective was Ypres again. In the path of this onslaught was the 6^th Wilts. By the time the battalion was relieved on April 20 they had lost over half their strength. Charles had been severely wounded and died as a result on April 29. His grave was lost due to constant shelling and he is remembered on the Tyne Cott memorial.

Herbert Frederick Preater was born in 1896 and served with the 2^nd/8^th Battalion of the Worcestershire Regiment. He was killed in action on November 1, 1918 and is buried in France in the Cross Roads Cemetery Fontaine au Bois.

John Edward Preater was born in 1893. He served with the Worcestershire Regiment. He survived and returned home. He took over as landlord at The New Inn following his father’s death in 1922. John collapsed at the GW Railway Station, Chippenham on August 14, 1933. He was travelling with a group of friends and his fiancée. They were off to Weymouth for a short holiday. He died on the platform before a doctor could arrive. There was no inquest as John was under the care of a doctor at the time of his death. He is buried with his parents and his sister.

Two elder sons didn’t serve.

There were two daughters. Eva Emma Leah Preater who married James Ernest Wood, an Engine Erector, in 1909. Eva died in 1974 aged 90 and is buried close to the Preater family grave. Youngest child, Ada Cora Preater, never married. She took over as proprietor of The New Inn after her brother’s death in 1933. She died on February 26, 1956 at the pub where she had lived all her life. She is also buried in Radnor Street Cemetery in plot D65A.

Resources include Tell Them of Us by Mark Sutton

Swindon’s War Record by W.D. Bavin

The Leggett Brothers – William (left) Ernest (right)

Sanford Street School Memorial, Radnor Street Cemetery chapel

Join us in a Service of Remembrance at Radnor Street Cemetery on Sunday November 10. Meet at the Cross of Sacrifice memorial for 2pm.

The restless Weight family

The Weight family were a restless bunch – well some of them were anyway.

In 1911 Albert John Griffiths Weight aged 59 made the decision to emigrate to Canada. With his wife Emma and their daughter Elsie Pauline, a teacher aged 25, they boarded the Royal Edward setting sail from Bristol for Montreal on May 3. Albert’s name appears on the Manitoba, Saskatchewan and Alberta, Canada Homestead Register dated 1872-1930. Emma died in 1937 at Shamrock, Saskatchewan and Albert died in 1942.

But it would be their son Clifford who led the most memorable of lives and left his mark on the art world.

Clifford Seymour Weight was born in 1891, the youngest of Albert and Emma Weight’s four children. In 1901 the family were living at 17 William Street and Albert worked as a Saw Mill Machinery Fitter in the GWR Works. By 1911 they had moved up the social ladder to Old Town and lived at 32 The Mall. Just weeks after the census was taken in 1911 Albert, Emma and Elsie left for Canada.

Clifford remained in England, leaving two years after his parents when he set sail from Liverpool to Maine on the MS Canada. He spent some years in California where he trained as an architect and in around 1925 he travelled to Mexico where he met Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo.

rivera-and-wight

Photograph of Diego Rivera and Clifford Wight published courtesy of Local Studies, Swindon.

By 1929 he was better known as Clifford Wight. Whether the name change was a deliberate decision remains unknown, just another facet of this man’s extraordinary life. At this time he was working as a technical assistant, translator and secretary to the Mexican muralist Diego Rivera. Clifford worked on murals for the Detroit Institute of Arts, the Rockefeller Centre in New York (later destroyed) and the Coit Tower in San Francisco.

clifford-wight

Surveyor by Clifford Wight – Coit Tower, San Francisco.

Clifford led a fascinating life, full of action, adventure and political intrigue. Read more on the Swindon Library website and the Syracuse University website.

Clifford’s death, like his life, is shrouded in mystery. He died on May 7, 1961 at the Hospital Clinico Barcelona Spain, apparently having fallen from a tram. Or was he pushed?

But getting back to the Weight family in Radnor Street Cemetery …

This is the grave of Samuel Joseph Weight and his wife Mary Ellen, a more settled couple.

Samuel J. Weight was typical of most newcomers to Swindon. Born in Gloucestershire in about 1839 he came to New Swindon in the 1860s to a job in the Works. At the time of the 1861 census he was lodging with his brother John and his family at 17 Reading Street where both brothers worked as fitters and turners in the railway factory.

Two years later Samuel married Mary Ellen Ford at St Mark’s Church on July 16, 1863. By 1871 the couple were living at 5 Cromwell Street with their five year old son Ozias Enoch, Samuel’s widowed mother Mary and nephew Albert John, the son of Samuel’s brother John.

By 1881 Samuel had left the Works and was licensed victualler at the Golden Lion Hotel, a pub on the Wilts and Berks canal, which lent its name to the iconic Golden Lion Bridge. It was here that Mary Ellen died on December 26, 1890. At the time of the 1891 census Samuel was still living at the Golden Lion Hotel with his sons Ozias, Bertie and William and daughter Emma, but soon after this he retired to Hook House in the parish of Lydiard Tregoze where he died on May 21, 1897.

Only one of Samuel and Mary’s children remained in Swindon – Bertie Charles Weight. Ozias ended up in Liverpool where he died in 1922, Samuel jr moved to Balham while William died in Bromley in 1960. Daughter Emma married and died in Heston in 1912. Little Polly, a baby daughter who died at the Golden Lion in 1881 aged three weeks old, was one of the first burials in the new Radnor Street cemetery on August 18.

Although Arthur Clarence Weight is remembered on Samuel and Mary Ellen’s headstone their grandson is not buried with them. He lies in plot E8548 with his parents Bertie Charles and Edith Eleanor and a brother Reginald Charles Frederick. A branch of the restless Weight family who stayed put.

mary-ellen-and-samuel-joseph-and-arthur-clarence-weight

Struggle and Suffrage in Swindon

For ten years I have been a member of a small but perfectly formed team of cemetery enthusiasts. We research and write about the people in the cemetery and throughout the summer months conduct guided cemetery walks.

Our next walk on Sunday June 23 will include the launch of my recently published book – Struggle and Suffrage in Swindon – Women’s Lives and the Fight for Equality.

The cemetery opened in 1881 and closed in the 1970s. There are more than 33,000 people buried there and I think its probably a fair estimate to say that half of those are women.

The vast majority of the women buried in the cemetery were only remembered by their families, until they too passed out of living memory. Thousands of them have no headstones and no memorials.

The timeline for my book is 1850-1950, a period of incredible social and political change for women – yet it is still often difficult to find out about the lives of ordinary women.

When you are tracing your Swindon family history in the 1851 census you will most likely find your female ancestors recorded as ‘boilermaker’s wife’ or ‘carpenter’s wife’ or more often than not there will be just a blank space under occupation.

In 1851 the census enumerators were instructed not to record women’s work if it was part time, seasonal or if they worked in a family business, which pretty much rules out most of the jobs in which women were employed.

Working class women didn’t leave memoirs or books or letters. They didn’t have the time or the opportunity. These ordinary women, the ones who didn’t do anything life shattering (except raise the next generation) leave little evidence of their existence.

It is the story of these women that I like to tell, and I’ve made some extraordinary discoveries during the course of my research.

Join me at Radnor Street Cemetery on Sunday June 23 for a book launch followed by a guided cemetery walk with Andy and Noel. Meet at the Cemetery Chapel for 1.45 pm.

Sheila White Compton's factory 1949 — Sheila White – Factory girl

May George002 — May George – Swindon’s first female Mayor

004 — Jane Dicks nee Tuckey – buried in a pauper’s grave

Lady Mary - Lydiard House Collection — Lady Bolingbroke – former housemaid

James Hinton – a good and trusted and esteemed servant

The re-imagined story …

I will admit to having a grudging admiration for Mr. James Hinton, but I wouldn’t say I actually liked him. We’ve done business together on a couple of occasions and he’s very shrewd. He strikes a hard bargain and you have to respect him for that. And he works hard; the stamina of the man!

He’s been in the news most recently for offering up a piece of land on which to build the new cemetery. Some say he has gifted the land, but in fact he has sold it to the Burial Board. He’d probably like it to go down in history that he was a generous benefactor, but he’s sold it at a very competitive price. As the debacle of the cemetery question needs a quick resolution his fellow members on the Board were happy and grateful to accept the offer.

I’m quite surprised he didn’t win the contract to lay out the cemetery and construct the requisite buildings, but perhaps he didn’t put in a tender. Perhaps that would have been an audacious step too far. Next would have been a vote to name the new burial ground the James Hinton Municipal Cemetery.

But I will admit, I secretly quite admire the man.

The facts …

‘Mr Hinton stated that he would assure to the Board a free right of way to the proposed site for a cemetery over Stafford St., and Dixon St., and a right of way over Lansdown Road (from the Sands to cemetery over or 11 feet road) marked green on plan & over Radnor Street & Cambria Bridge Road to Fleetway.’

Swindon Advertiser July 1, 1880

The Cemetery – The Clerk reported that the Cemetery Committee had accepted the tender of Messrs Phillips, Powell and Wiltshire for laying out the cemetery and doing the necessary buildings for the sum of £5,390 10s. Detailed plans of the works were placed on the table and it was said the same was now in active operation.

Swindon Advertiser April 9, 1881

Death of Ald. J. Hinton

A painful sensation has been caused throughout the town by the news of the death of Alderman James Hinton, of The Brow, Victoria Road, Swindon…

For some time past it had been known that Mr Hinton had not enjoyed what may be termed the best of health, and on several occasions recently he had to resort to medical care, but no one, even those nearest to him, ever thought for one moment that he would be stricken down with such painful suddenness…

The deceased Alderman was 65 years of age. He was essentially a native of Swindon having been born in Newport Street in 1842. He had been for very many years intimately connected with the moving forces of the Borough, and took a keen practical interest in its commercial developments. There is not a class in the town, no matter what their religious or political opinions may be, but what will deeply deplore the loss of a public man whose best energies were given to the service of the community in which he lived.

The deceased Alderman’s career was one characterised by much interest, inasmuch as by his own industry and business acumen he rose from a somewhat humble position to one of comparative affluence…

The deceased Alderman became well known too, for his judicious speculative undertakings. Important estates, capable of considerable developments, were laid out by him, notable amongst which was the Kingshill building estate laid out in 1879. He became a large owner of land, enterprise dominated his thought and action followed; money flowed in and accumulated, and by dint of patience and perseverance Mr Hinton emerged from the obscurity with which Newport Street and the butcher’s shop had somewhat enshrounded him into the full light of prosperous, active life…

As Mr Hinton became absorbed in the growing interests of the town, further important undertakings came in his way. In conjunction with Mr Haines, he had the contract for constructing the Swindon and Highworth railway, which upon its completion was acquired by the GWR Co. During his speculative undertakings Mr Hinton did not at once relinquish the auctioneering profession, in which he was eventually succeeded by his son, Mr Fred Hinton…

It is about 30 years ago that he was elected on the then New Swindon Local Board, taking the place of the late Mr J. Armstrong, who was for some time Loco. Superintendent at the GWR Works, Swindon…

The old Local Board existed up to the year 1894, when the District Councils’ Act came into operation, and Mr Hinton then succeeded Mr T. Brain as the Chairman of the Council. He represented the East Ward, and did not suffer defeat until 1896, on which occasion he was touring in Australia, and was as a matter of fact unaware that his name had again been submitted to the electors…

In 1900 the Charter of Incorporation was granted to Swindon, and that august body, the Town Council, was constituted. Mr Hinton once again entered the arena of active local life, still representing the East Ward. He was elected a member of the Wilts County Council on its formation in 1889, and was a member of that body up to the time of his death. It was only the other week that he was returned unopposed for the East Ward. He was for four years a member of the Board of Guardians in the time of the late Mr William Morris, who was then the proprietor of the Swindon Advertiser. He was Swindon’s fourth Mayor, and it was, of course, largely in consequence of his associations with the almost phenomenal development of the town that his acceptance of the Mayoralty was invested with exceptional interest…

Mr Hinton was a Freemason, and was a member of the Gooch Lodge. He was also a Forester, being initiated an honorary member of “Briton’s Pride” Court at the Eagle Hotel during his year of Mayoralty…

He was raised to the Alderman’s bench on the same occasion that he was elected to the Mayoral chair. He was a man who possessed a broad and liberal mind, and by his death the town has lost a good and trusted and esteemed servant…

Extracts taken from James Hinton’s obituary published in The Swindon Advertiser, Friday, March 15, 1907.

James Hinton’s memorial in Radnor Street Cemetery

Coming next …

A Nice View – “It’s going to be an expensive business, getting buried in the new cemetery.”

published on Radnor Street Cemetery blog January 24 2019