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.

Martha Hale – a small life

The re-imagined story …

I bought Martha’s little oak gate leg table that always stood in her hall. I remember a vase of seasonal flowers always stood there; daffodils in the spring, sweet peas in the summer, dahlias and chrysanthemums in the autumn and evergreens in the winter.

It would break her heart to see her home being picked over like this, but what else could he do. Martha’s youngest son Owen took over the farm after she died but now he was retiring and moving away. He was taking just a few personal possessions with him.

His six cows stood mournfully lowing in the stalls as the auctioneer sold off the livestock while the furniture gathered across generations of the Philmore family was examined by neighbours who barely remembered them.

The ten-acre farm on Hook Street had been home to the Philmore family for more than four generations and a hundred years. Martha had been baptised and married in St Mary’s Church and in turn had brought her babies there to be baptised. Her parents were buried in the churchyard and her husband and daughter next to them.

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I sat by Martha’s bedside in the bedroom beneath the eaves of the thatched roof; the room where she had been born. Her life had been a small one, intimately interwoven with farm and church, family and friends. She had barely moved out of the parish throughout her life, but in death she was to be separated from all this. There were no more burial spaces in the churchyard, when Martha died, she was buried alone in Swindon Cemetery.

I never went to the funeral. It was just too sad, I couldn’t bear it. I offered instead to get a tea ready for the mourners. They would need something to revive their spirits, Swindon Cemetery was a bleak place in January. I put a small pot of snowdrops on the hall table, just as Martha would have done.

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The facts …

Once part of the Midgehall estate, Creeches, the ten-acre holding close to the Old School House, belonged to the Earls of Clarendon until 1860 when the Clarendon properties at Lydiard Tregoze were sold to Henry Meux, head of the Meux brewery. In 1906 Lady Bolingbroke bought the farm for £995 9s 8d.

Creeches was included in the Lydiard Park Estate sale of 1930. The farm was described as a very desirable small holding of rich meadow land, the house was built of stone with a thatched roof, six rooms and usual offices. The farm buildings included a cowstall and yard, stable and cart shed. The property was let on a Michaelmas Tenancy to Mr A.H. Lopes at a rent of £45 a year.

With no interested buyer, the farm was retained by the St John family until after the death of Lady Bolingbroke in 1940 when what remained of the estate went on the market. A copy of the sale catalogue bears a pencilled note that the property sold for £1,275 although other sources say it was bought by Amy Woolford for £1,405.

Martha was baptised at St Mary’s on June 9, 1816. She married Charles Hale at St Mary’s on October 18, 1836. The couple had six children, Thomas, Ann, Mary, Charles, Jane and Owen.

After her marriage to Charles Hale the family lived first at Toothill Cottages and then in a cottage next to the Sun Inn at Lydiard Millicent before returning to Creeches to look after Martha’s elderly parents.

By the time Martha died in 1890 the churchyard at Lydiard Tregoze was closed, and the burial ground at Hook not yet opened. Martha was buried at Radnor Street Cemetery in Swindon. Her gravestone is exactly the same design as the one on her husband and daughter’s grave at St Mary’s.

The spelling of the name of the 10-acre farm on Hook Street, close to the Old School House, varied across the 19th century cemetery. In 1805 it was known as Cruises, in 1828 as Cruches and by 1888 it appears in records as Creeches.

Creeches Farm pictured in the late 19th century published courtesy of Lydiard Park.

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!

Winifred Edith Morse – founder of the Women’s Missionary Federation, Swindon branch

A comprehensive list of burial dos and don’t in Radnor Street Cemetery was published when the new burial ground opened in August 1881. The cost of a common grave was 5s (25p) but sadly, many working class families could not afford even this and there are numerous public graves in the cemetery where more than one unrelated persons are buried together. The cost rose considerably for a multi occupancy plot and a 9ft (2.7 metres) deep vault cost £4.4s (£4.20) while a brick or boarded grave for a single burial 9ft (2.7 metres) deep cost £1.1s (1.05). It is likely that the graves in the chapel area are vaults or brick lined, which would increase the cost.

The Morse family grave is surmounted by a magnificent black, granite monument and occupies two plots, 27A and 28A in Section D.

This is the last resting place of Levi Lapper Morse and as the inscription explains he was a Justice of the Peace and served as an Alderman and the second Mayor of Swindon. He was MP for South Wiltshire for six years. He was an active and energetic member of the Primitive Methodists, serving as Circuit Steward of the Swindon II circuit from its formation until his death. He was elected chair of the Brinkworth District Meeting and Vice President of Conference in 1896 and also served as District Missionary Treasurer for about nine years. He was a lay preacher, Sunday school teacher and an accomplished organist. Levi played a prominent role in both the political, commercial and religious life of Swindon and there is plenty of information available about him, but what about his wife?

Winifred Elizabeth Humphries was born on December 10, 1848 the eldest child of Farmer Isaac Humphries and his wife Elizabeth. She grew up at Cockroost Farm, Broad Hinton where her father employed five men and two boys and a 17 year old governess to teach his growing family.

Charles Morse established a family retail business in Stratton St Margaret but his son Levi went on to accomplish far greater things. Levi opened one of Swindon’s first departmental stores, which until the 1960s stood on the present site of W H Smith’s in Regent Street, Swindon.

Levi and Winifred married in 1875 and set up home above the shop in Stratton Street, Stratton St. Margaret where he described himself as a grocer and draper, employing two men, two females and two boys. Winifred’s first child Ella Elizabeth was born in 1876 with seven more to follow. Levi states on the census returns of 1911 that he and Winifred had been married 35 years and that they have eight children, six of whom are still living while two have died.

Winifred supported her husband throughout his political career, but it was within the Primitive Methodist Church that she did most of her work. Winifred had been an active member of the Primitive Methodist Church since before her marriage and as a young girl played the organ at chapel services, often walking several miles from her home on a Sunday morning. The first Primitive Methodist Church in Regent Street was built in 1849. Further structural changes saw the church become the largest of the three Primitive Methodist Churches that formed the Swindon Circuit in 1877. It was also the focal point for the missionary activities of the Primitive Methodists in Swindon in the 1880s and where Winifred was the founder of the Women’s Missionary Federation Swindon branch in 1909.

The Morse family moved into The Croft in 1896, an elegant property that stood in four acres of land with paddocks, flower beds and ornamental trees, a tennis lawn and a fountain. William Ewart Morse, the couple’s son, remained in residence until his death in 1952 after which the house fell into disrepair and was eventually demolished. Hesketh Crescent built in 1957 now stands on the site.

Winifred died on 17 July 1919 following a long illness. Her funeral took place at the Regent Street Primitive Methodist Church with which she had so long been associated. The service was conducted by Rev F.W. Harper assisted by Rev J. Dobson, an old family friend. The Rev Dobson spoke in his address of Winifred’s good works and the loss which the church had sustained by her death.

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.

William Dorling Bavin – Swindon’s War Record

William Dorling Bavin wrote the definitive book recording the story of Swindon during the First World War. Commissioned by Swindon Borough Council and published in 1922 Bavin compiled a complete record of local activities, charitable and otherwise, in connection with the war. It is a book which has been the source material for so many others and to mark the centenary of the First World War a facsimile copy was published by Local Studies, Swindon Central Library and is available from the Library Shop.

W.D. Bavin was born in Lincoln in 1871 and spent his early career as an assistant tutor at Westminster Training College, London and later as an instructor of pupil teachers at Bath Technical College. In 1897 he was appointed the first head of the Swindon Pupil Teacher Centre for teachers at Swindon Board Schools.

His other appointments included head of Swindon Higher Grade Elementary School and headmaster of Sanford Street Boys School.

William D. Bavin married twice. His first wife Jessie died in 1915 and his second wife Helen in 1959. Bavin died in 1948 and is buried with both his wives.

Swindon J.P.

Death of Mr W.D. Bavin

After a short illness the death occurred in the Victoria Hospital this morning of Mr W.D. Bavin, aged 76, of 160 Goddard-avenue, Swindon a retired headmaster of Sanford-street Boys’ School.

Starting his career as a pupil teacher in 1889 at Lincoln he completed his training at Westminster Training College and was then engaged as a resident tutor.

Two and a half years later he took up an appointment at Bath Technical College as head of the pupil teachers’ centre department and was then appointed head of the Pupil Teachers’ Centre which opened in Swindon in 1897.

In 1903 he became head of the Swindon Higher Elementary School and in 1919 was transferred to the headmastership of Sanford-street Boys’ School when his elementary school was converted into a secondary school.

For some years he was the National Union of Teachers’ representative on the Education Committee and was vice-chairman of the Swindon Juvenile Employment Sub-Committee. He was also founder and chairman of the After-Care Committee.

His activities for youth had not been confined to school service however. He was founder and treasurer of the Swindon Triangle Boys’ Club, and for many years was the president of the local Sunday School Union.

Mr Bavin was also the author of various works on mathematics and local history and his record of Swindon’s part in the 1914-1918 war received compliments from universities in America, France, Scotland and Wales. He wrote two volumes on teaching for Sunday School teachers and since 1918 had written the annual Sunday School Union handbook.

He was a Borough magistrate

Swindon Advertiser January, 1948.

W.D. Bavin

The Richman brothers – Tell Them of Us

The re-imagined story …

The late Autumn sunshine glances across the cemetery. Everyone says how unseasonably warm it is this year. The Scouts who stood around the Cross of Sacrifice on Remembrance Day struggled in their uniforms. One little chap fainted. He hit the ground with such a thud. Never seen that happen before. November is usually a bleak month; the weather bitter, the memories more so.

I’ve walked past this grave so many times over the years, but do you know what, I can’t remember what once stood atop the memorial. Perhaps they placed an angel here after Isabel died. I wonder if her father ever got to meet his little daughter. Most probably it would have been a cross though, I think. What happened to it? Did it topple over during a winter storm?

The cemetery volunteers will be around in a little while. I see them most Thursdays. They do a fantastic job keeping the war graves clear. And not only the official ones but the monuments like this one, too. Today the distinctive feature about the dilapidated memorial is the inscription:

In Loving Memory of Private Alfred George Richman 5^th Wilts Rgt Husband of F.E. Richman Died in Mesopotamia Feb 19, 1917 Aged 32.

Private Archibald David Richman Machine Gun Corps Died in France Feb 4^th 1918 Aged 21 sons of D. & S.J. Richman.

I remember the Richman family like it was only yesterday. But can I remember what stood on the top of this monument? Perhaps it will come to me later.

The facts …

When David Richman completed the 1911 census returns he recorded that he and his wife Sarah Jane had been married 28 years. They had five children, all of whom were living. By the time of the next census in 1921 they had lost two sons.

In 1911 Alfred George Richman lived at 18 Plymouth Street. He was 26 years old and worked as a branch manager in a grocery store. He had been married to Frances Edith just under a year. They would go on to have three children, Kenneth and Raymond and little Isabel who was born in 1916 and died in 1917. In 1911 Archibald David was just 14 years old. He lived with his parents and his elder brother and younger sister at 10 St Margarets Road, working as a grocery apprentice alongside his father. Another elder brother Frank was also married. He worked as a railway clerk in the GWR Works and was married to Annie Mary. They lived at 86 Kent Road with their baby daughter Phyllis Irene.

Archibald David Richman is buried in the Hazebrouck Communal Cemetery, one of 877 Commonwealth burials of the First World War (17 of them unidentified).

Alfred George Richman is buried in Amara War Cemetery in modern day Iraq where his name is recorded on Panel No. 39 XXVII E.

Those buried in grave C1575E are Fanny Withey, Sarah Jane Richman’s sister. She died in January 1910 and her burial took place in Radnor Street Cemetery on January 31, 1910. Isabel Annie Richman is buried in the same plot. She was buried on March 14, 1917 the daughter of Alfred George and Frances Edith Richman. She was just 15 months old.

Cyril Hammond Montague Jones – Tell Them of Us

The graves around the chapel area include some well-known names in Swindon’s history, but I must admit I had never heard of Cyril Hammond Montague Jones.

Cyril was the son of William Jones and Jane Moss. William was born in Gloucester in around 1854. He married Jane Moss at St. Luke’s, Gloucester on July 10, 1882 when he described himself as ‘Lay Clerk St Andrew’s, Bristol.’ William and Jane’s two children were both born in Bristol, Edith Hammond Jones born in 1883 and Cyril Hammond Montague Jones in 1885.

By 1891 William and Jane were living in Churcham, Glos with their two young children and a 10 year old nephew. William now states that he is ‘Living on own means’ suggesting he has a private income or inheritance.

The family eventually made their appearance in Swindon at the time of the 1901 census when they were living at 27 Regent Street where William describes his occupation as ‘Draper.’

In 1917 Regent Street was the centre of a busy and vibrant shopping area. Morses department store occupied premises at numbers 10, 11 & 12. The 1,000 seater Arcadia Cinema had opened in 1912 on the site of a former shopping arcade. W.W. Hunter’s furniture shop stood on the corner of Edgware Road and Regent Street (look up and you can still see the name in the brickwork). The County Electric Pavilion picture house opened in 1910 and was in operation for more than 20 years. The site was later occupied by F.W. Woolworth and today is home to the One Below Discount Store and Peacocks. Then there was the Artillery Arms at No. 25; F.E. Cottell, jewellers and watchmakers at No 26 and in 1917 Mrs J. Jones, Milliner was at No. 27. Perhaps the nature of their business had changed. There was some fierce competition with Morses at one end of Regent Street and McIlroys at the other.

Cyril trained as an architect but on April 1, 1915 he enlisted with the Royal Navy serving on the President before transferring to the Royal Garrison Artillery (RGA). Lieutenant A Captain Cyril Hammond Montague Jones died on November 14, 1918 at the 2^nd Eastern General Hospital, Brighton. He was 33 years old. He was buried in Radnor Street Cemetery on November 20 in plot D15A.

This now a large double family plot where Cyril lies with his mother Jane who died in 1924, his father William who died in 1949 and his sister Edith who died in 1965.