Joshua Jackson – India Mutiny Veteran

The Ruins of the British Residency, Lucknow attribution Vyom.Y.

Joshua Jackson’s obituary published in the Wiltshire Times and Trowbridge Advertiser Saturday 29 April, 1911 might be brief, but it provides a lot of information about the extraordinary life he led as a young man (see below).

Joshua was born in at Manchester on January 7, 1836, the second of James Jackson, an inn keeper, and his wife Hannah’s 8 children.

At the age of 19 Joshua joined the army and within two years he was serving in India with the 60^th Rifles during the Indian Mutiny. As with most wars, the causes were several but a flashpoint came when the Sepoy soldiers of the Bengal Army were issued with the new Enfield rifle. The Enfield used cartridges that had to be bitten open, which both the Muslim and Hindu soldiers believed had been greased with animal fats, contravening their religious observances. This however was just one cause in a complicated situation which signalled a significant turning point in the relationship between Britain and India. Joshua was also involved in the Siege of Lucknow*, defending the garrison and the British Residency in that city from the Indian soldiers.

The outcome of the Mutiny was an end to the East India Company’s right to rule India. Britain made India a part of the British empire and instated a British Governor General. Twenty years after the war Queen Victoria became Empress of India and the Viceroy of India ruled in that country on her behalf.

From India, Joshua went to serve in China during the Second Opium War where in 1859 he saw action at the Battle of the Taku Forts.

But by 1865 he was back in England where on May 4 he married Sarah Ann Potts at St John’s Church, Frome in Somerset.

The 1871 census records the couple living in Frome with three children, Henry 5, Percy 3 and one-year-old Henrietta. By 1881 they had arrived in Swindon. The census of that year lists them as living at 47 Haydon Street. Joshua worked as an Engine Fitter in the GWR Works while Sarah raised their large family already numbering 7 children.

In 1891 the family were living at 28 Guppy Street, Rodbourne. Three sons had followed Joshua into the Works as apprentice fitters and turners while another three sons had been born in the intervening ten years. Guppy Street remained the Jackson’s family home where Joshua died in 1911 and Sarah in 1928. The couple are buried together in plot C301 with their only surviving daughter Henrietta who died in 1920.

It appears that the Jackson family were buried in a reused grave. The first person buried in this plot was John Meek who at the time of his death in 1897 was an inmate of the Stratton Workhouse. The grave was no doubt a public plot but purchased by the Jackson family at the time of Joshua’s death.

Death of a Mutiny Veteran

Funeral at Swindon

There was buried in Swindon Cemetery last Monday afternoon the mortal remains of Mr Joshua Jackson, an Indian Mutiny veteran. He was born at Manchester in 1836, and at the age of 19 years he enlisted in the old 60^th Rifles, and two years later was drafted to India, seeing much active service in the Mutiny, but fortunately he escaped without a scratch. He also fought later in the China War, and was present at the taking of the Taku Forts. When he returned to England he left the Army in 1867 and settled down at Frome. Then he removed to Swindon and worked at his trade for many years in the GWR Works. He joined the Freemasons while at Frome 45 years ago, and when he came to Swindon he joined the Gooch Lodge, 34 years ago, becoming Tyler, a post he held till the time of his death, at the age of 75 years.

Deceased leaves a widow and ten children – eight sons and two daughters.

Besides the family mourners, a large number of Freemasons attended.

Wiltshire Times and Trowbridge Advertiser Saturday 29 April 1911.

*As you walk along Rodbourne Road past Ron’s Stores, look up and above the terrace of houses you will notice in the brickwork an inscription that reads Lucknow Terrace.

James Fairbairn – pioneer railwayman

The re-imagined story …

We were promised a company house when we moved to New Swindon but when we arrived we discovered they were still being built!

So we ended up in one of twelve wooden cottages built in the back of beyond.

New Swindon was referred to as a pioneer town and out at Hay Lane we certainly felt we were living on the frontier. It would never have surprised me to see a herd of buffalo come bounding across the fields with Red Indians whooping and yelling behind them.

When the young Fairbairn couple moved into the empty cottage next to ours Margaret was heavily pregnant. It was her first child, but she was remarkably calm about giving birth in such primitive conditions.

Margaret’s pains came on in the middle of the night. We could hear her moans through the thin wooden partition that separated our homes. I left my own children in their beds and went next door to see what I could do to help. The poor girl laboured for many hours and I feared for her life and that of her baby. And at the end of her travails there was not just one, but two babies. They were small and I didn’t hold out much hope for either of them, but they thrived and survived.

And those draughty wooden cottages, well they were moved to Eastcott and survived as well. The GWR hated waste!

The facts …

James Fairbairn was born in c1816 in Dundee in Scotland and was one of the early railway men to settle in Swindon. James moved first to Newcastle and then to London working for Daniel Gooch and Archibald Sturrock. He married Margaret Armstrong at St Mary, Newington on 2nd October 1841.

James Fairbairn worked as an Engine Erector and later became one of the most senior Foremen in the Works. He was one of the first subscribers to the Sick Fund in 1843 and an early member of the Mechanics’ Institution, elected to its ruling Council in 1855. He was also one of the first subscribers to the Medical Fund.

James and Margaret Fairbairn arrived in Swindon in 1842 at the very beginning of the railway transformation, before the company houses were completed. Like so many other newcomers, James and his pregnant wife Margaret were accommodated in temporary housing. In their case they were housed in buildings at the Hay Lane Station (Wootton Bassett Road).

Brunel had first considered siting the GWR workshops at Hay Lane and designed for employees a row of twelve, single storey wooden cottages erected by building contractor J.H. Gandall. However, Daniel Gooch considered that the Swindon location was more suitable and that is where the workshops were eventually built.

Conditions at the Hay Lane cottages were basic and it was there that Margaret Fairbairn gave birth to twins George and Elizabeth Ann in the Spring of 1842. The babies were baptised at Wroughton parish church on June 5, perhaps they were not expected to survive. George followed his father into the railway works as an engine fitter. He married Catherine Gosling and the couple had one daughter. George died at his home in Havelock Terrace in 1892 aged 49. He is buried in Radnor Street cemetery in plot B2070. His sister Elizabeth Ann married and moved away. Her husband, Charles While, a roll turner, moved to Swindon with the opening of the Rolling Mills in the 1860s. The couple lived at addresses in Workington and Sheffield before settling in Lancashire where Elizabeth died in 1912.

James and Margaret Fairbairn lived at various addresses in New Swindon, including 12 Reading Street, No 2 Fleetway Terrace, 25 Fleet Street and finally at 20 Harding Street where they both died in 1895. Margaret died in March aged 78 and James three months later in June aged 80.

John Webb – builders’ merchant

The re-imagined story …

If you were a builder, where would you build your own house? When I was a child it was always my dream to live in one of those Victorian red brick villas on Bath Road. I had a couple of favourites; properties I would buy if I ever won the pools. Dad always let me do a line on his coupon. I used to have my favourite teams as well, ones I picked every week. I could tell by the expression on dad’s face we wouldn’t be collecting our winnings anytime soon.

Mr Webb had built the house I had my eye on – an elegant property named Fairhaven, close to the Bath Road Methodist Church. It was everything you’d expect a fairhaven to be – beautiful with a fantastic view; a safe place to raise a family.

When Linda and I got married we bought a three bedroom terrace house in Dover Street. An old lady had lived there all her life – it needed a lot of work doing on it. No bathroom and an outside toilet, an old fashioned scullery and you could smell the damp as soon as you opened the front door. We ploughed every penny we had into renovating that little house, doing most of the work ourselves. We were young, fit and in love. I wouldn’t attempt a project like that now – not that I don’t still love Linda, of course!

When we eventually finished we decided to give the house a name; of course it had to be Fairhaven. Our own beautiful place in which to raise our family. And would you believe it, John Webb had built our house in 1882.

The facts …

John Webb was born in North Nibley, Gloucestershire in 1850, the son of Henry Webb, an agricultural labourer, and his wife Lucy. At the time of the 1871 census he was still living at the family home and working as a wheelwright. However, he soon struck out on his own, moving to Swindon in the early 1870s.

Through the 1870s and 80s John was busy across town building houses in Regents Circus (c1872) Page Street eight cottages (1876) Princes Street, house (1879) Station Road house (1881) Dover Street houses (1882) and so it continued.

He married Edna Whiteman at ‘the Wesleyan Methodist Chapel near the market place Swindon’ on April 13, 1876. He was 26 years old and describes himself as a carpenter and joiner living at 5 Henry Street, Rodbourne Lane. Edna[h] was 22 years old, the daughter of Jesse Whiteman, a farmer from Gorse Hill.

At the time of the 1881 census John Webb employed 12 men and 3 boys. Between 1881 and the mid 1890s John and Edna lived at 13 Station Road, sadly not a fairhaven as here two of their children died – Ellen Lucy in 1887 age 3 months and Jesse Henry who died in 1892 age 15.

And then in 1911 John changed tack. Hereafter he worked as a builder’s merchant. Perhaps he found it more profitable. Perhaps he found the years of heavy labour were taking their toll.

John died on May 31, 1927 aged 78 years. He was buried in plot E8528 with Edna who had died in April 1923 aged 69 years. Their two young children are buried in the neighbouring grave where Edith Annie, their second eldest child, was also buried when she died in 1948 age 69.

Charlotte Lawes and Sarah Nicholas – looking good, ladies

The re-imagined story …

The path from the Dixon Street cemetery gate to the one at Kent Road was steep and she usually had to pause half way up to catch her breath. It was a nice spot, her resting place, and she quite liked the one chosen by Charlotte Lawes and her neighbour Sarah Nicholas as well – not that she was planning on joining them anytime soon. Although many more journeys up Deacon Street carrying shopping might well finish her off, she thought.

She wondered what their funerals had been like. Did they have the full works, black coach and plumed horses? She had rather fancied a funeral like that herself until her daughter asked – “What, like an East End gangster?” That had rather put her off.

There were not many headstones in this part of the cemetery and some of those that remained were badly weathered. She wondered who they all were – the people buried on this, the steepest part of the cemetery. She sympathised with the funeral director and his men who had to carry the coffins up this steep slope. Two bags of shopping were quite heavy enough.

Right, she took a deep breath; not much further to the Kent Road gate. Goodbye Charlotte and Sarah until next week – looking good, ladies.

The facts …

When the cemetery opened in August 1881 the first burials took place in Section A. Perhaps the methodical Victorians planned it that way. Perhaps the families burying their loved ones had no choice. Perhaps Section A was the first area ready to receive burials in the hastily constructed cemetery.

August 6 – Frederick Gore, 54, a house painter plot A140; Albert Edward Wentworth, 1 month old, an infant plot A139 and three days later, Mary Grave Hill, 8 years old, a child A138. So many burials in August 1881 – Edwin Hemmings, undertaker; Benjamin Smith, auctioneers’ clerk; Thomas Basson, labourer and so many babies and children.

Section D and E boast many memorials. Some large and impressive – guardian angels, maidens weeping – some more modest, kerbstones around the plot bearing a name. In Section A there are few surviving headstones. There were probably never many anyway as this is where the early railwaymen and their families were buried. Difficult enough to pay for a funeral, let alone a gravestone. Difficult enough to live.

Charlotte Lawes lies alone in plot A539. She died on April 2, 1883 leaving a personal estate valued at £123 5s 6d to her sister Elizabeth Palmer. Perhaps Elizabeth paid for the headstone out of her inheritance.

Charlotte was born in Bath and baptised at St. James’ Church on February 8, 1818. Her mother’s name was Jane and her father John was a tailor. Charlotte had at least one sister, the aforementioned Elizabeth, and the family lived in Bathwick. By 1851 sister Elizabeth was married but Charlotte was still single and working as a barmaid in Bath.

On March 9, 1857 Charlotte married William Arundel Lawes in St Mark’s Church, Lyncombe. William was an engine fitter living in Swindon and considerably younger than Charlotte. The couple had no surviving children.

By 1861 the couple were living at 32 Westcott Place. Ten years later they were living in the railway village at 41 Taunton Street where William died the following year. He was buried in the churchyard at St. Mark’s, the church in the Railway Village, where Charlotte saw to it that he had a fine headstone, too.

Charlotte remained living at 41 Taunton Street where at the time of the 1881 census she is recorded as a widow aged 64 sharing her home with a boarder, John Newman 31, a draughtsman in the Works.

Like New Swindon itself, Section A was a busy place with people arriving all the time. John Crane, a 63 years old labourer from 20 Queen Street was buried in the plot next to Charlotte on March 13, 1883, shortly before she moved in. This grave plot appears to be a public one – no sold sign written in the burial registers.

It would be almost twenty years before anyone else joined Charlotte and John. Then on February 25, 1901 Sarah Nicholas was laid to rest next to Charlotte and another gravestone was erected. Sarah had died aged 81 at her home in Cheltenham Street. She left effects valued at £138 18s 1d to Edmund Jones, a builder, enough to erect this fine gravestone.

And so, the two women have lain in rest side by side for more than a century. Looking good, ladies.

Cottell Brothers- marking time

The re-imagined story …

I once asked my pa if I could have a watch for my birthday. After a brief silence he replied: “Isn’t the hooter loud enough for you lad?”

The Works hooter punctuated our days, its blast heard across the town, even out into the countryside as far as Lydiard Park. Old Lord Bolingbroke fought a long battle with the GWR in his attempt to have it silenced. He said it disturbed his sleep. It disturbed ours as well – that was the whole point of it!

My heart’s desire as a fourteen year old was to own a pocket fob watch. I would wear it in my waistcoat pocket attached by a gold chain. Before you scoff, I did have a waistcoat, all of us lads did. It was a part of the Works unofficial uniform in my day; not the old fashioned white ducks nor the boiler suits that came much later. No, we wore trousers, a jacket and a waistcoat – and a cap, mustn’t forget the cap.

The clock on the Rolleston Arms keeps poor time these days. I’ve just checked it against my pocket watch and its running five minutes slow. That would never have happened in Mr Cottell’s day.

The facts …

The Cottell family have left an enduring legacy with their clocks and watches, which occasionally appear for sale online, but unravelling their burial history has been less straightforward.

Image published courtesy of Local Studies, Swindon Central Library.

Buried in plot A174 is James Hall Cottell and his wife Ann. The family does not appear to have a long association with Swindon nor the clock and watch making industry come to that. James worked as a clerical assistant most of his life, later becoming a brewer’s manager. He died in February 1891 at Bedminster, Bristol. His father, James Cottell, was a Captain in the Royal Marines, as is mentioned on the headstone – see below.

Joseph’s son Arthur William Joseph Cottell pops up in Swindon on the 1881 census living at 32 Carfax Street. He is working as a Railway Clerk as is his eldest son also named Arthur William Joseph. The younger children are Charles 15, Lydia 12, Walter 10 and Frederick 7 who are all still at school.

By 1891 the census reveals that the family are now living in Regent Street where Charles and his younger brother Walter are both working as Watchmakers & Jewellers.

When Mary and Arthur died in 1892 and 1897 respectively they were buried in grave plot E8150.

Their son Charles James of clock and watch making fame died in 1916 and was buried with his grandparents in plot A174. His name was not added to the headstone, presumably because there was no room on the front.

Their only daughter Lydia married first Henry Herbert Oswald and secondly Frederick William Roger Williams. She died in September 1925 in Clapham Park. She is not buried in Radnor Street Cemetery.

Youngest son Frederick died in Swindon in 1953 but he is not buried in Radnor Street Cemetery.

Eldest son Arthur died in Worthing, West Sussex in 1958 and he is not buried in Radnor Street Cemetery either.

Arthur and Mary’s third son, Walter Henry, an engineer, died in 1968 in South Africa where he had lived for a number of years, apparently having forsaken the clock and watch making business, too.

For a family who once marked time in Swindon their individual deaths passed with little notice.

Ellen Amanda Alley – an ordinary woman

Today I am returning to one of my favourite Swindon families, the Alley family. You’ll see the name feature frequently on this blog. My interest in this amazing family was initially piqued by Emma Louisa Hull, the eldest daughter of George Richman and Emma Alley. I discovered Emma Louisa had joined the Women’s Freedom League and served a prison sentence in the formidable Holloway Prison for protesting in the Votes for Women campaign.

Then there were her six sisters, all independent, career women who ran their own businesses, including Mabel who was awarded the BEM (British Empire Medal) for fifty years service to the community as Postmistress at the Wescott Place Sub Post Office.

And in September 2022 I was able to welcome to the cemetery three members of the extended family; Di and George from Australia and Kay from Canada.

Now I have been able to discover the burial place of Ellen Amanda Alley, the daughter and 5th surviving child of Frederick Alley and his wife Elizabeth. Ellen was born in 1876 and is recorded on the 1881 census living with her parents and six siblings at 65 Gooch Street. By 1891 fourteen year old Ellen was working as a baister at Compton & Son, a clothing factory which employed a large female workforce situated on Station Road. The family were then living at 108 Princes Street.

In 1897 Ellen married Charles [Herbert] Thomas, a boilersmith employed in the GWR Works, and the young couple began married life with Ellen’s parents in the crowded Alley home at 9 Gordon Road.

The 1911 census lists Ellen and Charles living at 94 Bruce Street, Rodbourne with their three daughters Ada, Elsie and Gladys.

It would appear that Ellen led a quiet life fulfilling a typically female role, unlike her seven, trailblazing female cousins. But did she? So often the lives of women go unrecorded. I would urge all the women out there to write down the story of their life. Collect and record the lives of your mothers, grandmothers, aunts, female cousins, friends and neighbours. Set up a Facebook page and let’s link everyone in – make one huge history page for the ‘ordinary’ women out there. What do you think? Shall I get us started?

Ellen Amanda Thomas died on January 2, 1924 at the Victoria Hospital. She was buried on January 5 in grave plot D615. Her last address was at 32 Morris Street, Rodbourne.

Photographs are published courtesy of Wendy Burrows – family historian extraordinaire!

Elias Isaac Webb – still painting at the age of 83

Elias Isaac Webb worked in the railway works for 48 years as a painter and sign writer and painted landscapes in oil in his spare time. In 1947 when Elias was 83 years old he won first prize in an arts exhibition organised in Swindon by the Council of Social Services.

Elias was born in Westbury in 1864, one of nine children. By 1889 he was living in Swindon where he married Ada Hancox at St Mark’s Church on December 14^th. The couple had three daughters and a son.

Elias and Ada were interviewed by the Advertiser on the occasion of their Golden Wedding anniversary in 1939. By then in their mid seventies they were both very active. They were members of the Worker’s Education Association and still enjoyed the summer rambles organised by that group.

They told the Advertiser reporter that ‘we celebrated our silver wedding in war time, and now our golden wedding in war time. We hope, if spared, that our diamond wedding will be in peace time.’

Well they did make it to their Diamond Wedding. Elias died in 1957 aged 93 and Ada in 1962 also aged 93. They are buried here with two of their children; Frederick James who died in 1949 and daughter Elsie who died in 1974 aged 80.

The couple’s great-granddaughter told me that Ada originally paid a guinea for grave plot C1849 in 1914 for herself and Elias to be buried in. However their married daughter Ada Irene Jones died suddenly in 1932 so she was buried there instead.

In 1933 Elias bought this plot in E Section from Agatha Mary Beak of 49 Union Street. He paid £2 8s.

The facts …

Painting at the Age of 83

To mention the world “artist” immediately conjures up visions of a gaunt figure with carelessly combed hair, living in an attic. But these characteristics do not belong to Mr. Elias Webb, of 45 Newcastle-street, he is a leisurely pensioner undistinguished by peculiarity.

Walking into his drawing room is like entering a cave enchantment, studded with rare works of nature. On the walls are “works,” notably Killarney lakes, which show how sensitively he handles his materials.

The textures are evolved with utmost refinement the colours modulated to the most delicate adjustments of temperamental choice. He has captured in its entirety the importance of light and shade, colour planes and geometric configurations.

Country Visits

Many years ago Mr. Webb and a friend became interest in oil painting and attended the studio of a Mrs Hack, who was the first women to serve on the Swindon [School Board] Council.

On the GWR staff he was engaged mostly on lettering and sign writing in his spare time he used to go into the country draw outlines, put the wash on the canvas and finish the work at home.

He won first prize at a recent arts exhibition organised by the Council of Social Services with a landscape showing misty hills with a winding track in the middle distance, a crofter’s cottage and cattle grazing. He painted this landscape when he was 83 years of age.

One of his paintings is now hanging in the Baptist Sunday School at Westbury, where he sat as a boy more than 70 years ago.

His Other Hobbies

Mr Webb’s other interest include gardening and music, although he said they are not strictly his hobbies. Before he retired 17 years ago, he worked an allotment garden on the Wootton Basset road for 40 years, and even now grows a few flowers in his back garden.

Since his marriage, 57 years ago, he has lived in Swindon. He came from Westbury where members of his family were well known in musical circles.

For 60 years Mr Webb has been a teetotaller, but he hastened to add “I don’t mind a person having a glass of beer it does some people good. But I am fit and do quite well without it.”

newspaper cutting

Ernest Abraham Rivers and a home fit for heroes – Tell Them of Us

And then there were those who came back – to a home fit for heroes.

Ernest Abraham Rivers was born in 1882 the second youngest child of James and Elizabeth Rivers’ large family. Ernest worked as a bricklayer and builder and married Eliza Painter on August 5, 1903. Eliza was born in 1882, the middle child of John Painter and his wife Hannah. Ernest and Eliza went on to have their own large family; their eldest son George Rivers (sometimes known as Painter) was born on October 13 1902, ten months before they married.

The family lived at 23 Prospect Hill when the 1911 census reveals they had five children, George 8, Raymond 7, Lancelot 5, Avis 3 and six months old Edna. They would go on to have another four children – Eileen born in 1913, Myrtle in 1915, Winifred in 1916 and Eric who was born in the summer of 1918.

On August 4, 1914 Britain declared war on Germany and at the end of 1915 Ernest joined the Royal Engineers leaving a wife and seven children behind in Swindon. Unfortunately, his service records are incomplete but it seems unlikely that he ever saw service overseas. Following his attestation he was sent to the army reserve before being mobilised to the Royal Engineers Depot W. Lancs. It was here that he served for 1 year 108 days before being discharged as no longer physically fit for War Service, suffering from a prolapse rectum, apparently a pre-existing condition that dated back to 1913.

Ernest returned to Swindon and his job as a bricklayer but in 1918 tragedy hit the family with the death of Eliza aged just 37. She left behind nine children including a baby just a few months old. There was no money for a private grave plot and Eliza was buried on November 13 in a public grave in Radnor Street Cemetery with four other unrelated people.

In 1939 war loomed large again. Ernest was living at 23 Prospect Hill with his two unmarried daughters. He had never remarried. That same year, youngest son Eric married Emily F. Gadd but sadly they would not have a happy ever after ending either. Gunner Eric Rivers, a member of the Field Rgt Royal Artillery, was killed on February 21, 1945. He was buried in Jonkerbos War Cemetery, Nijmegen Part 2, Belgium.

Ernest Abraham Rivers died in February 1951 aged 68. His last address was 23 Prospect Hill, the home he had shared with Eliza all those years ago. He was buried on February 24, 1951 in a public grave plot B1940, with four other unrelated people.

We continue to gather around the Cross of Sacrifice in Radnor Street Cemetery each Remembrance Day to remember those who sacrificed their lives in two world wars and those who died in more recent conflicts. And we remember those who returned but whose lives were never the same again – Tell Them of Us.

Category: Uncategorized

Joshua Jackson – India Mutiny Veteran

James Fairbairn – pioneer railwayman

Thomas Oswald Hogarth – Howzat!

William and Isabel Hogarth and the old days

John Webb – builders’ merchant

Charlotte Lawes and Sarah Nicholas – looking good, ladies

Cottell Brothers- marking time

Ellen Amanda Alley – an ordinary woman

Elias Isaac Webb – still painting at the age of 83

Ernest Abraham Rivers and a home fit for heroes – Tell Them of Us