Season of mists Pt III

Where are the songs of Spring? Ay, where are they?
Think not of them, thou hast thy music too –
While barred clouds bloom the soft-dying day,
And touch the stubble-plains with rosy hue;
Then in a wailful choir the small gnats mourn
Among the river sallows, borne aloft
Or sinking as the light wind lives or dies;

To Autumn by John Keats

Join me on another virtual cemetery walk from the comfort of your home.

There has been heavy rainfall over night and underfoot is very damp and slippy. But I have come prepared as today I am taking you to a crowded corner of the cemetery where there are some magnificent monuments with some classic funeral iconography.

The IHS on this cross is the Greek representation of Jesus Christ’s name. The garland of flowers around the cross represents victory in death. This is the last resting place of Edward Henry Sammes. It’s interesting that his family should make a point of adding ‘of Swindon’ to the inscription because Edward was not originally from Swindon but was born in Lambeth in January 1842, the son of William and Sarah Sammes.

The first reference to Edward in Swindon is in the 1871 census when he is 29 years old and living a 1 Belle Vue Road where he describes himself as a grocer. That same year he married Sarah Anne Spackman from Wootton Bassett. The couple had two children William and Millicent who are both buried here as well.

At the time of the 1881 census Edward described himself as a retired grocer. By 1889 he was a member of the Old Swindon Local Board, so well placed to know plans for development in the town. The family were then living at Wycliffe House in Devizes Road.

In 1892 Edward submitted a planning application to build eight houses on the corner of Kent Road and Maidstone Road. The land had orginally come on the market in the 1870s but development was slow to take off. However, by the 1890s the area was pretty much one huge building site.

A map of Edward’s project shows an empty site next door on the corner of Kent Road and Ashford Road with another empty site opposite. The building specifications for Edward’s houses describe three bedrooms, a parlor, sitting room, kitchen, conservatory, scullery, WC, coals and pantry. At the other end of the road rival builder William Chambers had a yard opposite his own development at Ashford Terrace.

Edward died in 1897 aged 55. He left £5,814 18s 6d to his widow Sarah and son William, worth today somewhere in the region of £2.7 million.

I’m not sure if his son William ever worked or whether he spent his whole life living off his inheritance. In the 1911 census the family are living at 31 Devizes Road where William, then aged 35, and his sister Millicent 27 are both living on private means.

We have been fortunate with the weather today. And doesn’t the cemetery look beautiful in its Autumn finery. But then it always looks beautiful to me. I look forward to keeping your company tomorrow.

Season of mists in Radnor Street Cemetery

Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness,
Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun;
Conspiring with him how to load and bless
With fruit the vines that round the thatch-eves run;

To Autumn by John Keats

It is the season of mists and mellow fruitfulness and time for a virtual walk among the memorials at Radnor Street Cemetery. I shall don my raincoat and carry an umbrella as the weather forecast is not good, but you can put on the kettle, make a cup of tea and join me from the comfort of your electronic device. Meet me at the Kent Road gate.

We begin with an incomer to Swindon and a gravestone in a precarious condition. As you can see there is a crack beginning to creep around the edge. Invariably, when this happens the whole surface of the stone shears off when all record of that person is lost. Sadly, there are a number that have so suffered when you look around the cemetery.

This is the last resting place of Jane Martinelli who died in 1893 aged 65. From the brief details on the gravestone I wondered if Jane and Thomas might be Italian however, further research has revealed that Jane was born in Worcester, and this is about all that can be discovered about her. The Martinelli story, on the other hand, is one of fluctuating fortunes.

In the 1891 census Jane is living with husband Thomas at 13 John Street, Swindon. Thomas worked as a Railway Coach Builder and states his place of birth as St. Pancras, London. He was baptised at Trinity Church on December 26, 1831, the son of Louis Martinelli, also a coach maker.

Thomas was descended from an Italian family famous for making barometers and thermometers and was the grandson of Aloysious Louis Martinelli born in Como, Italy sometime between 1761-1771. By 1799 he was living in London where he married Abigail Marshall at St. Anne’s Church, Soho. He died in the Lambeth Workhouse in 1845 aged 84.

Returning to Swindon and Jane’s story. The Martinelli’s didn’t have any surviving children and tracking them through the Victorian census returns reveal they lived in Manchester and Birmingham before arriving in Swindon.

Thomas married again in 1894, the year after Jane’s death. When he died in 1905 he was buried here with Jane. Regrettably, his name was not added to the headstone.

Well, the predicted downpour has ensued and I feel a chill in my bones. Time to be heading home, I think. Join me again tomorrow. Same time, same place?

John Seward – retired butcher

Butcher John Seward was born in Dunsford, Devon in 1835. In 1861 he was living in London when he married Mary Jane Connett at St Dunstan’s Church in the West, Fleet Street.

The newly weds set up home in a fishy part of London with butcher John Connett, no doubt a relative of Mary Jane. They all lived in Fish Street Hill in the parish of St Margaret New Fish Street, which runs at the back of the Monument to the Great Fire of London.

In subsequent years they lived in Haggerston Road, Hackney and Paignton Road, Tottenham. Then, after more than 30 years living and working in London, John and Mary retired to Swindon and a property in Ashford Road that they named Devonshire House.

John died in 1903 and was buried on July 25 in grave plot E8606. He was later joined by his son-in-law John P. Jackson who died in 1905 and his wife Mary Jane Seward who died in 1906.

The Gwyther family – but from where?

After my walk around St. Mark’s churchyard recently I began looking for family connections between there and Radnor Street Cemetery. And If you’ve ever pursued a line of family history research beyond the bounds of a possible resolution you’ll probably empathise with me!

The closure of the churchyard at St Mark’s in 1881 was not well received by Rev Ponsonby. (You can read his letter to his parishioners published in the parish newsletter here.) And how distressing it must have been for God fearing families to be buried separately.

Having come upon this stylish headstone to Richard Gwyther who had died aged 14 in 1875 I wondered what had happened to the rest of his family.

Now a name like Gwyther piqued my interest too. In the 1860s the GWR opened a Rolling Mill at the Swindon site, which saw a great many Welsh iron workers move here. Was the Gwyther family part of this first Welsh migration? Well actually no it wasn’t.

Research revealed that the boy’s father, also named Richard, was born on April 22, 1818 not in Wales but in Bristol. Richard was a boiler maker working in the iron and steel ship building industry. He married Caroline Cooper at the church of St Mary le Port in Bristol on May 14, 1843 and for more than 25 years the family continued to live in Bristol.

I eventually found the couple in Swindon on the 1871 census when they were living in Westcott Place, four years before the death of their son Richard.

Richard and Caroline remained living at 90 Westcott Place where Richard (senior) died in 1884. He was buried in grave plot A161 where another son James later joined him. Given the stylish headstone in St. Mark’s churchyard I was surprised to discover Richard and James buried in an unmarked public grave.

In 1891 Caroline, then aged 70, was living with her married daughter at an address in Wootton Bassett in an area at the back of the church near the Rope Walk. She died in 1897 and was buried in grave plot 285 in Royal Wootton Bassett Cemetery.

I did eventually find the Welsh connection – I knew there had to be one! Richard (senior) was the son of Stephen Gwyther, a clock and watchmaker, and his wife Sarah. This couple had married at St. Paul’s, Portland Square, Bristol in 1801, but Stephen was born in 1781 in Jeffreyston/Jeffreston, a village in Pembrokeshire close to Tenby, a popular TRIP destination for Swindonians in the 19^th century – but don’t get me started on that line of research!

Plaum’s Pit

A family of Belgian immigrants have left their name to a beauty spot in Rodbourne Cheney, possibly one of Swindon’s best kept secrets.

Plaum family history facts can be gleaned from notes on the 1911 census made by George Jacques Plaum. At that time he was newly married and living with his wife Catherine and his younger brother Robert Maximilian (who he describes as ‘feeble minded since birth’) at 489 Ferndale Road. He also adds that his father was German and his mother English and that the family had been resident in England since 1888.

Matthias and Clara Plaum had lived in Antwerp, Belgium from at least 1882 to 1887 during which time their children Georgius, Ernestus, Joannes, Robert and Frederick were all born. As George states in 1911, they have been living in England since 1888, so it should be possible to find them on the 1891 census.

On August 25, 1893 Matthias was admitted to the Wiltshire County Lunatic Asylum in Devizes where he sadly died on October 13. Now it was up to Clara to support three sons, one of whom could not work due to a disability. In 1901 she was living at 21 Vilett Street where she worked as a dressmaker. George 19 is employed in the GWR. Younger brother Frederick 13 claims he is a Railway Fitter and Wheel Turner. It is more likely he was an apprentice or perhaps a labourer. Robert is 15 years old. Life was obviously very difficult for them. The Radnor Street Cemetery registers state that Clara died in 1908 at 29 Villett Street aged 48 years. She was buried on December 10 in a public grave with two other unrelated persons.

But by dint of hard work and an entrepreneurial talent, George Plaum and his family prospered.

He purchased the Rodbourne Bathing and Boating Pool in the 1920s with financial help from a Bristol business man. The lake, like the one in Queens Park, began life as a clay pit feeding Victorian Swindon’s rapacious brick making industry. Quarrying came to an end when diggers hit underground springs and forced the closure of the clay pit.

By the 1920s the lake offered a number of leisure activities including swimming, boating and fishing. An additional income was derived from entrance and camping fees and refreshments. Grass, grazing and allotment fees brought in £5 7s 6d in 1925.

Today Plaum’s Pit is home to Plaum’s Pit Angling Club who can be contacted via their website.

Plaum’s Pit swimming pontoon in the 1930s

Image of Plaum’s Pit published courtesy of Brian Robert Marshall

Emma Louisa Newberry

Image of Drove Road taken c1926 and published courtesy of Local Studies, Swindon Central Library.

Emma Louisa Newberry died in 1964 aged 96 years. Emma was born in Guernsey in 1867. She had lived through almost a century of enormous social change including two world wars, the second of which saw the German occupation of her former island home.

Unfortunately, I can find out very little about her family background, not even her maiden name, but I will continue to research.

By 1893 she had married Ernest Walter Newberry, a gas fitter, quite probably in Guernsey where he was also born and raised. Emma’s Swindon story begins in 1894 when her daughter Gertrude May was baptised at St. Mark’s Church on May 27. Emma and Ernest, who was employed in the GWR Works, then lived at 28 George Street. In 1901 they were living at 54 Dean Street where their second daughter Clarice Louise was born. In 1939 Ernest and Emma were living at 86 Drove Road, their last home together.

Emma outlived not only her husband Ernest but both her two daughters as well. She died in the Isolation Hospital, Swindon on May 17, 1964.

Emma was buried on May 22, 1964 in grave plot B2669 which she shares with her husband Ernest who died in 1940, her daughter Clarice Hallard who died in 1958 and her son-in-law Herbert Hallard who died in 1948.

Her elder daughter Gertrude May died in 1954 but she is not buried here in Radnor Street Cemetery.

George Restieaux and the French connection

Today it is so easy to begin your family history research. With a couple of clicks of a laptop mouse you can enter a whole world of internet possibilities. Of course, there are pitfalls one of which is mis-transcriptions with websites such as Ancestry and Find My Past littered with them. I came across some examples such as Rasticand and Reastreamy when researching the surname Restieaux.

George Francis Restieaux was just sixteen years old (the newspaper report says 18) when he died in 1881. George was born in Neath, Glamorgan but Restieaux was definitely not a Welsh name. He was the son of coachbuilder/painter Edward Alban Restieaux and Susannah Matthews. Edward was employed in the GWR Works and in 1881 the family lived at 2 Bristol Street. Edward and Susannah had married in 1854 at St Pancras Church when they both lived in that London parish. By 1861 they were living in Neath, Glamorgan where George was born in 1865. His father Edward states that his own place of birth was Norwich in Norfolk and I wondered how the Restieaux family had ended up there.

With a few clicks of that laptop mouse I was able to find Edward’s parents Joseph Restieaux and Elizabeth Tidman who married in St John de Sepulchre, Norwich in 1804. Back one more generation and I arrived at the French connection; Andre Restieaux born in Bordeaux about 1740 who married Marguerite Magdalaine Mignot on January 6, 1766 at St Anne’s, Soho.

There is, however, only so far you can get with internet research and at some point you have to look at original documents. It would be interesting to discover what Andre’s occupation was and how he and Marguerite ended up in London, but that is a task for someone else out there. But beware of the pitfalls.

The first burial service in accordance with the rites of the Roman Catholic Church in the new cemetery was performed on Saturday last by the Rev Father Eikerling and the members of the St. Cecilia Society, of which deceased was a member. The body of deceased, George Restieaux, aged 18 years, having been removed from the house of his parents to the Roman Catholic Chapel in Regent Street, the service, which throughout was choral, commenced, lasting close upon an hour, when the body was removed to the hearse and conveyed to the cemetery, accompanied by the Rev Father Eikerling and his attendant acolytes, the relatives and friends and members of the choir and society. At the cemetery chapel the service was resumed by the singing of the Requiem aeternam of Cacciolini, at the close of which the officiating priest preached a brief sermon, in course of which he reviewed the life of deceased and his connection with the St. Cecilia Society. The procession having been reformed, the corpse was borne to the grave, the choir singing the “Miserere,” concluding with the Requiem aeternam. At the grave the singing, which was particularly effective, was brought to a close by the singing of the anthem “I know that my Redeemer liveth.”

The former Roman Catholic Chapel painted by local artist George Puckey in 1890

Despite a rather elaborate funeral service, young George was buried in Radnor Street Cemetery in a public grave, plot A353, where he lies alone.

His father Edward died 14 years later in 1895 and his mother Susannah in 1912. Both were buried in separate, public graves. Edward in B2434 and Susannah in B1609. George’s brother John Valentino Restieaux died in 1928 and was buried in grave plot C61, another public grave.

Mary Jeanes and her granddaughter

What was life like for the ordinary people who lived and died in Swindon at the end of the 19th century? So many were incomers, attracted to the town by the many opportunities presented by the Great Western Railway Works and the affiliated jobs that grew up around it, including the food and vibrant retail industries. Some families put down roots and stayed, others moved on. The Jeanes family did both.

Widowed Mary Jeanes appears to have arrived sometime in the 1870s with her daughter Ellen 21 and her 15 year old son (Frederick) John. The family were originally from North Petherton, Somerset and arrived in Swindon via Bridgewater.

By 1881 they were living at 46 Regent Street where Mary’s son worked as a Master Baker. Frederick married and settled down in Swindon. His sister Ellen married Frederick Barnstaple/Barnstable and left. By 1891 they were farming at Llantarnam, Monthmouthshire.

Mary Jeanes died in February 1887 aged 65 and was buried in grave plot A1038. When Ellen and Frederick’s 15 year old daughter Florence Nelly died in 1888 they chose to have her buried with her grandmother Mary in Radnor Street Cemetery.

A little girl from Brixton

You can spend a whole lot of time on research when a particular fact piques your interest. This most recently happened to me when I was researching Sarah Judd who died at her home, 27 Havelock Street in 1883. For the past 140 years she has been resting in this sunny spot in Radnor Street Cemetery but before that she had lived in a great many other places.

Sarah was born in 1821 in Palling, Norfolk, the daughter of James and Rosetta Hicks. She married Frederick Judd in Chatham, Kent on January 17, 1850 and at the time of the 1851 census Sarah, Frederick and their baby son James were living with Sarah’s parents in Gillingham, Kent.

During the next 10 years the family moved about – a lot – their six children born at various addresses in Kent and Hampshire. By 1861 Frederick was employed as a Police Constable and they were living at No 19, Archbishop Place, a leafy suburb at the top of Brixton Hill, Lambeth. In 1862 their daughter Elizabeth was baptised at St Matthew’s Church, Brixton and in 1866 a second daughter Harriet was also baptised there.

The Tate Library, Brixton, Lambeth.

I grew up in Brixton in the 1950s and 60s and I know exactly where St Matthew’s Church is; it’s just a stones throw away from the Tate Public Library where I spent a lot of my childhood. Elizabeth was born some 30 years before the library was built in 1890 and 100 years before I used to borrow books there. One of my favourites was the stories about a little girl called Milly Molly Mandy who had the kind of life I wished I had. I used to carefully colour in the pictures before I returned the books.

Milly Molly Mandy and a picture in need of my careful colouring skills

The Judd family had arrived in Swindon by 1881. Frederick had long since left the police force and was working as a house painter. Still living with Frederick and Sarah were James 30 (born in Kent) Sarah 21 (born in Hampshire) and Elizabeth 18 and Harriet 15 (both born in Brixton).

Basking in the sunshine, the leaning headstone has a large ants nest obscuring the last inscription, probably the name of Sarah’s husband Frederick who died in 1907 at his home, 53 Crombey Street.

And buried in this plot in 1944 was their daughter Elizabeth, the little girl born in Brixton more than 161 years ago. I shall call round and say hello next time I’m passing.