Join us tomorrow (Sunday November 12 at 2 pm) for a Service of Remembrance in Radnor Street Cemetery when we will commemorate all those who have died in war and as a result of their military service. We will also be unveiling a plaque dedicated to Mark Sutton.
Radnor Street Cemetery was a very special place to Mark. For many years he conducted guided walks around the war graves, remembering the Swindon men who served in the Great War.
He organised the Remembrance Day Service at the cemetery conducted first by his father Dennis and later by the clergy from St. Marks, and he maintained the cemetery chapel where he saw the installation of several memorial plaques.
Mark was an inspiration and a friend and will always be remembered here at Radnor Street Cemetery.
Mr King held a whole school assembly the day the news was published. William Hall had been awarded the DSM, the Distinguished Service Medal for Honours for Services in Action with Enemy Submarines.
William Hall hadn’t been a pupil at Jennings Street School. By the time the school opened he was working as an Engine Fitter ‘inside.’ It was this job that made him ideally suited for the role of Engine Room Artificer.
We all knew the Hall family. They lived at 77 Jennings Street. My auntie lived opposite them at number 4. Everyone knew everyone in Rodbourne in those days. We all shared in the glory of one of our own being so honoured.
Less than a year later we all mourned his death as well. He wasn’t killed in battle. To expect another act of heroism from one man would be too much. William Hall died of pneumonia and pleurisy – another form of drowning, only not at sea.
Perhaps Mr King held another assembly. I don’t know, I had left school by then and was waiting to start my own apprenticeship in the Works. I was too young to serve, much to the relief of my mother.
By 1918 everyone knew of someone who had died in the war. It was like that in Rodbourne. But not everyone knew someone who had won the DSM.
L to r Thomas Redvers Hall, William Jasper Hall and Frederick Charles Hall. Seated are their parents William Charles and Sarah (nee Kingdon) Hall.
The facts …
William Jasper Hall was born on November 6, 1888, the third child and second son of William Charles Hall and his wife Sarah. At the time of the 1891 census the family were living a 30 Jennings Street, Rodbourne on the very doorstep of the Great Western Railway Works.The family continued to live at various houses in Jennings Street.
William Jasper followed his father into the Works, entering the GWR Employment and a 7 year Fitters apprenticeship on his 14th birthday, November 6, 1902.
He enlisted in the Royal Navy on March 20, 1916 and completed his training period on the Victory II as an ERA (Engine Room Artificer) on April 28, 1916. His character and his ability were both described as Very Good.
William Jasper Hall seated second on right
His naval records reveal that he served on HMS Cormorant, a receiving ship at Gibraltar where he joined the Freemasons at the Masonic United Grand Lodge in 1916.
In September 1917 William was awarded the DSM (Distinguished Service Medal) for Honours for Services in Action with Enemy Submarines.
By 1918 he was back on Victory II, a shorebased depot for Royal Navy Divisions at Crystal Palace and Sydenham. From here he was admitted to the Royal Haslar Hospital in Gosportwhere he died on September 14, his cause of death pneumonia & pleurisy.
Family recollections are that William caught the Spanish Influenza with a poignant postscript to the story. His mother Sarah visited the hospital where she was able to care for her son during his final days. Sadly, Sarah contracted the ‘flu and died two weeks after her son.
William was buried in plot E7464 on September 19. His mother Sarah was buried in the same plot on September 28. William Charles Hall died in 1939 and joined his son and wife. Jessina, William Jasper’s elder sister, died in 1949 and was buried in the plot with her brother and her parents.
Family photographs are published courtesy of the Hall family.
It was our pride and pleasure to mark the installation of the 104th CWGC official headstone in Radnor Street Cemetery in September 2021.
The headstone marks the grave of William John Nurden, a former blacksmith’s striker in the Great Western Railway Works, Swindon. On December 11, 1914 he was killed whilst serving as a Lance Corporal in the Wiltshire Regiment. He was working on the Amesbury and Military Camp Light Railway (also known as the Bulford Camp Railway) at Newton Tony when he was killed crossing the railway line whilst on duty.
A team from the Commonwealth War Graves Commission installed an official headstone on the unmarked grave of William John Nurden, more than 105 years after his death.
Members of his extended family joined us at the Service of Remembrance in November 2021. We hope you will join us for the Remembrance Service this year during which a plaque dedicated to Mark Sutton will be unveiled. The service takes place around the Cross of Sacrifice at 2 pm Sunday November 12.
Radnor Street Cemetery volunteers with the CWGC team and the newly installed official headstone
Fred and Emily’s boy didn’t have a grave, so they made a memorial for him in Radnor Street Cemetery.
Fred and Emily married in middle age. He was 45 and she was 41. They had both been previously widowed. Emily had a daughter Elsie Louise, Fred doesn’t appear to have had any children by his first wife. And then along came little Fred. Was he the apple of their eye? Was he their pride and joy?
Fred was a Lance Corporal in the 2nd Battalion of the Wiltshire Regiment when he was killed in action on May 30, 1918. He was 19 years old. He has no known grave and is remembered on the Soissons Memorial.
Emily died in December 1926 and is buried with her first husband John Williams in plot number A2494. Fred died in February 1932 and is buried with his first wife in plot number B2331.
The memorial to their son stands on Emily’s grave.
The original British Expeditionary Force crossed the Aisne in August 1914 a few kilometres west of Soissons, and re-crossed it in September a few kilometres east. For the next three and a half years, this part of the front was held by French forces and the city remained within the range of German artillery.
At the end of April 1918, five divisions of Commonwealth forces (IX Corps) were posted to the French 6th Army in this sector to rest and refit following the German offensives on the Somme and Lys. Here, at the end of May, they found themselves facing the overwhelming German attack which, despite fierce opposition, pushed the Allies back across the Aisne to the Marne. Having suffered 15,000 fatal casualties, IX Corps was withdrawn from this front in early July, but was replaced by XXII Corps, who took part in the Allied counter attack that had driven back the Germans by early August and recovered the lost ground.
The Soissons Memorial commemorates almost 4,000 officers and men of the United Kingdom forces who died during the Battles of the Aisne and the Marne in 1918 and who have no known grave.
The memorial was designed by G.H. Holt and V.O. Rees, with sculpture by Eric Kennington. It was unveiled by Sir Alexander Hamilton-Gordon on 22 July 1928.
I was coming out of my apprenticeship in August 1914 and I knew I would soon be out of a job. They were laying men off at the Works and wouldn’t be taking on any newly qualified boilermakers.
Then England declared war on Germany and I enlisted with the Wiltshire Regiment the following week.
That was my reason for joining up. Other men had other reasons. Many enlisted because it was the right thing to do, God was on our side. Some joined up to be with friends and family. Others saw it as an opportunity to travel beyond the confines of Swindon and see a bit of the world and anyway, it would all be over by Christmas, that’s what everyone believed.
My mate Norman Lynes didn’t have an option. He had previously served with the Middlesex Regiment and was on the reserve list. Perhaps he had a different attitude to warfare, having already experienced it. I doubt whether he had a different attitude to being killed. We all wanted to come home. He wouldn’t have been any different.
Norman was reported missing following the attack on ‘Bully Wood’ during the Somme offensive in September 1916. Everyone knew what that meant; he had been killed in action, yet his death wasn’t confirmed until a year later – a year later! Then his mother placed a plaque on his father’s grave. It’s quite worn now; you can still read the words taken from his last letter home.
There’s no victory without sacrifice.
I didn’t want to make that sacrifice and I bet Norman didn’t want to either.
The facts …
Frederick Jesse Lynes married Ann Glover at St Mary de Lode, Gloucester on August 23, 1877. By the time of the 1881 census Frederick and Annie were living at 34 Catherine Street, Swindon with their daughter Maud aged 2 and five months old Frederick John.
Frederick was employed as a Steam Engine Maker and Turner at the GWR Works and by 1891 the family was living at 23 Carr Street, their home for more than twenty years. Their youngest child Norman was born there in 1892 and baptised at St Mark’s Church on February 22, 1892.
Frederick died in December 1904 and was buried on December 15 in grave E7187, a plot he shared with his mother Caroline who had died eleven years earlier. On his headstone is inscribed ‘for 25 years a member of St Mark’s Church choir.’
Frederick and Ann’s son Norman enlisted with the British Army at Hornsey on September 11, 1914. His attestation papers reveal that he had previously served in the 10th Middlesex and that his time had expired. He was 23 years and 11 months and a tall man, standing 6ft 2 and a half inches. With a chest measurement of 36 inches his physical development was described as good.
Norman served in Gibraltar and Egypt for seventeen months before being posted to France where he served for four months. On October 22 he was officially declared missing and on July 26, 1917 it was accepted that he was dead, his death assumed on or since September 1, 1916.
TF/200776 Private Lynes (1/7th Middlesex Regiment) name appears on the Thiepval Memorial Pier and Face 12D and 13B.
On September 20, 1921 Annie took receipt of her son’s medals – the 1914-15 Star and the British War & Victory Medals.
The 1/7th Battalion Middlesex Regiment served with the 167th Brigade, 56th (London) Division. They were on the Somme before the battle and helped dig assembly trenches near Hebuterne. On 1st July 1916 they were in reserve for the attack on Gommecourt. They trained with tanks in August 1916 near Abbeville and fought in the battles for Leuze Wood and Bouleaux Wood in September 1916. In one attack with the tanks on 15th September 1916 they lost over 300 men out of 500 who took part in the attack on ‘Bully Wood’. In October 1916 they fought at Spectrum Trench near Lesboeufs suffering nearly 200 casualties.
During this month of remembrance I will be telling the stories of those buried in Radnor Street Cemetery who died as a result of their military service.
The Commonwealth War Graves headstone on grave plot C3653 commemorates two military heroes who served in not only the Great War but in the South African campaign as well.
Alfred Hale born in c1869 in Enford, Wiltshire was about 17 years old when he enlisted with the Wiltshire Regiment in 1886. Having served for 7 years he was transferred to the Reservist List. In 1894 he married Mary Jane Paradise at the church of St. Mary the Virgin, Devizes. He was recalled to serve in 1898 and again in 1900. (A son born that same year was named Frederick William Mafeking). He was discharged and added to the Reservist List in 1902. Having received the Queen’s South African Medal with clasps he might have expected that this was the end of his military career. However, in September 1914 he was recalled to serve yet again, by then he was 44 years old.
Perhaps Mary Jane was used to being a soldier’s wife. Perhaps she never expected her husband would return from that terrible war in South Africa. But the outbreak of the Great War in 1914 must have brought a whole new level of worry when her eldest son Alfred enlisted and her husband was recalled.
3655 Pte Alfred Hale was discharged unfit to serve on September 25, 1916. He had cataracts in both eyes. His medical records state that his condition was not the result of and not aggravated by his military service and that an operation was advised. Alfred returned to his home at 163 Beatrice Street, Gorse Hill. He died at the London Hospital on November 7, 1919 aged 49. He was buried in grave plot C3653 on November 13, 1919.
200214 Pte Alfred Hale, aged 24 was serving in Israel and Palestine when he died from pneumonia on February 21, 1919. He was buried in Ramleh War Cemetery. He left £30 11s 11d to his mother, which included a War Gratuity of £26 10s.
Father and son are both remembered on a CWG headstone. The inscription reads:
3655 Private A. Hale
Wiltshire Regiment
7th November 1919 Aged 49
Also in memory of his son
200214 Pte A. Hale
Wiltshire Regiment
21.2.1919
Sharing the grave with Alfred is Mary Jane, his wife, who died in 1958 aged 85 years old. The inscription reads ‘Rest After Weariness.’ Buried with them is their son Frederick William Mafeking who died in 1953 and George Saloway, their daughter’s husband, who died in 1954.
I am frequently asked if I have ever seen a ghost in the cemetery and have been told by others of their own paranormal experiences, but I don’t tend to go in for ghostly graveyard stories. For me Radnor Street Cemetery is a place of beauty and serenity and it’s the life and times of those buried there that interest me.
As a team of volunteers it is our mission to remember. We remember those who served in war; those who served in the industry of our town; those ordinary men and women, some of whom devoted their lives to good works, and those who had such short lives they are in danger of being forgotten.
On Remembrance Day November 12 we will be honouring Mark Sutton who spent all his life remembering others and doing good works. We hope you will join us for a Service at the Cross of Sacrifice at 2 pm followed by the unveiling of a plaque dedicated to Mark.
Charles Edward Stroud was born on March 8, 1894 the son of William Henry Stroud, a storekeeper in the railway factory, and his wife Elizabeth Mary. William and Elizabeth had a large family of nine children but by the time of the 1911 census only four were still living.
We can find out a lot about Charles’ working life thanks to the UK Railway Employment Records 1833-1956 available on Ancestry.
Charles began work in the railway factory on June 1, 1908 as a 14 year old office boy. On December 6, 1909 he transferred to R shop to begin a five year fitting and turning apprenticeship. These records were meticulously updated and the last entry referring to Charles reads: War – Military duty, last at work 29/8/1914. Apprenticeship terminated.
Sadly, we know little about Corporal Stroud’s military career. You may wonder why so many of the WWI servicemen’s’ records are lost. In September 1940 the War Office repository in Arnside Street, London was hit during a bombing raid, destroying more than half the military records stored there. What remains of these records (referred to as the ‘burnt documents’) are available to view on microfilm at the National Archives and also online at Ancestry and Find My Past. There is roughly a 40% chance of finding the service record of a WWI soldier. But before you get started on your research why not visit Local Studies at Central Library, Swindon where the staff will be able to help you.
The go-to-book for information on Swindon men who served is Tell Them of Us by Mark Sutton. We have a few copies for sale, available during our cemetery walks. (Our next walk is Sunday October 29, meet at the chapel for 2 pm).
Corporal Charles Edward Stroud served with the 2nd Battalion of the Wiltshire Regiment. He died of wounds on March 6, 1916 at the General Hospital Cambridge. His body was returned to 41 Stanier Street, Swindon and the funeral took place on March 11. He is buried in plot D1501 with his parents. He was 21 years old.
If you’re familiar with the CWGC commemorative headstones it might surprise you to know that this is one too. Families were given the choice of an official headstone or one of their own choosing and this is what the family of Edwin Henry Hale did.
Edwin Henry Hale was born on March 30, 1885, the only child of Edwin and Alice Elizabeth Hale. He was baptised at St. Paul’s Church on April 7, 1885 just around the corner from the family home at 2 Regents Place.
In May 1899 as a fourteen year old boy he entered the employment of the GWR as an office boy while he waited to begin an apprenticeship. Six months later in September 1899 he began a six and a half year apprenticeship in the Coach Trimming Shop.
In 1908 Edwin married Alice G. Gleed at St. Mark’s Church and by the time of the census in 1911 the couple were living at 53 Sydney St. Hornsey, London N.1. They had been married for three years but had no children.
Edwin’s military records did not survive the bombing during the Second World War, so the inscription on this headstone is crucial to our understanding of his military service during the First World War.
Gunner Edwin H. Hale gave three years service in Mesopotamia. Historically the area of Mesopotamia was situated between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers and today is home to Syria, Turkey and most of Iraq.
During the 1914-18 war the conditions on the battlefields were horrendous. Temperatures regularly reached 120 degrees Fahrenheit (49 degrees centigrade) in this arid desert area, which was prone to flooding. More than 12,600 soldiers died of sickness; 51,800 were wounded with 3,900 dying of their wounds; 11,000 were killed in action and 13,400 reported missing or taken prisoner.
And yet somehow Edwin survived this and was brought back to England. Sadly, he didn’t make it home to Swindon though, dying on February 18, 1920 at the Military Hospital in Devonport.
Alice Elizabeth Hale, Edwin’s mother died on November 21, 1927 and his father Edwin died on April 25, 1933. They were buried in the same plot with their only son.
Horace Lett Golby was born on April 18, 1887 the youngest of five children. He grew up living at various addresses in Gorse Hill where his father James worked as a house painter. As a 15 year old boy he began a 6 year carpentry apprenticeship in the GWR Works.
On April 5, 1915 he married Ethel Florence Phillip at the parish church in Seend, Wiltshire, the bride’s home parish. He was 28 and she was 25. Their daughter Dorothy Mary was born on January 22, 1916 and later baptised in the church where her parents had married.
Most of Horace’s military records are lost. All we know is that he served as an Air Mechanic 2nd Class in the Royal Flying Corps, the precursor of the RAF. He died on March 30, 1918 at the Military Isolation Hospital in Aldershot. The Army Registers of Soldier’s Effects reveal he left £7 8s 6d to his widow.
We know nothing about his military service, nor about the kind of man he was. What were his hobbies, did he play football or cricket, did he like gardening? A life sacrificed in war, but still remembered 105 years later.
Horace was buried on April 3, 1918. He shares a grave with his mother Mary who died in December 1913 and his father who died in 1939.
Radnor Street Cemetery 