Tag: Medgbury Road

Chiseldon Camp disaster

The re-imagined story …

The houses in Medgbury Road looked exactly like ours in Derby. I don’t know why I was surprised. We were exchanging a home in a northern railway town for one in Wiltshire, of course there would be similarities. I just didn’t take account of how many there would be though.

The old canal ran alongside Medgbury Road, silted up and no longer in use, while row upon row of red brick terrace houses stretched back to the railway line.

We were moving to Swindon to make a new start. I don’t know how we thought that would be possible. To begin with we had a kind of excitement, but I soon realised we lacked imagination. Perhaps it was the grief. We were no different to anyone else; how could we have ever thought it would be otherwise?

Every household, every family had someone employed in the railway works and in 1920 everyone had been touched by four long years of war.

When my new neighbour told me about the Chiseldon Camp accident it felt as if it had happened just yesterday, so intense was her grief.

“We knew them all. You did in a street like this. Watched them grow up, start school, start work,” she said. “It was the Easter weekend, the year after the war ended. The boys were off to Liddington Castle for the day. They took a few sandwiches and some pop. It was all so innocent. Just a day out in the country. A few games with their friends.

“One of the boys suggested walking over to the practise trenches at the Chiseldon Camp. They split into two groups and just seven of the boys chose to go on to the Military Camp.

“Albert Townsend watched his mate Fred pick up something that looked like a rolling pin, and roll it down a bank,” she pulled a handkerchief from her apron pocket. “Three of the boys were killed outright, only one of the seven escaped injury.”

There was talk of setting up a memorial in the cemetery, she told me, raising a public subscription, but people just didn’t have the money in those first years after the war. There were already a growing number of memorials appearing across the town commemorating too many dead. But the boys’ story would long be remembered and the mothers of Medgbury Road would never forget.

We lived in Medgbury Road for a year and then we moved back to Derby. How did we ever think we could forget? Why would we want to?

Chiseldon Camp

The facts …

The funeral of Frederick Cosway 14, Frederick Rawlinson also 14 and 13-year-old Stanley Palmer, the adopted son of Elizabeth and Henry Holt, took place on April 24 1919 and was attended by what was described as ‘an immense throng’ of people.

The funeral procession started from the boys’ homes along a route lined with spectators and proceeded to the Central Mission Hall in Clarence Street. The congregation numbered approximately 800 with many more standing outside the hall.

The report of the funeral continued:

“Two of the coffins were conveyed in shillibiers and the third on a handbier. There was a great profusion of flowers. The chief mourners followed in carriages. They included the parents and other relatives of the deceased lads. Between 30 and 40 lads, companions of the deceased, followed on foot.

As the procession wended its way to the Cemetery rain commenced falling heavily, but it proved to be a storm of short duration. The interment took place in the Cemetery in the presence of several thousand spectators, and the service, which was conducted by Pastor Spargo, will long be remembered by all who took part.”

The three boys were buried together in plot C728. Today there is no memorial to mark the spot.

Chiseldon boys

Charles and Susannah Witts

This is the last resting place of Susannah and Charles Henry Witts. Susannah died first, in 1936 and Charles outlived her by more than 20 years.

Susannah was born in Stratford, East London, but grew up in West Ham where her father worked as a paperhanger and painter. In the 1901 census Susannah, then aged 20, was recorded as working with her father, also as a paperhanger and painter.

Charles Henry Witts was born at Stratton Green and was baptised at St Margaret’s Church. He was the son of Charles Neville Witts and his wife Caroline.

By 1891 the Witts family had moved to 68 Medgbury Road. Charles Snr had a job in the Works as a Boilermaker’s Assistant, but guess what I found 12-year-old Charles Henry doing? He was working as a paperhanger’s boy.

Charles Henry married Susannah Cleminson in 1905 in her home parish of West Ham, but they obviously decided they didn’t want to carry on the paperhanging and painting business. By this time Charles Henry was working as a stationer and the couple lived at 35 Curtis Street from the time of their marriage to Charles Henry’s death in 1958.

Susannah died on January 11, 1936 at Queen Mary’s Hospital in Stratford.

Now while I was researching this family on the Ancestry website I had a bit of luck. I found a family tree with photographs but unfortunately it was a private tree with the information withheld but I emailed the person who had set up the tree asking her if she could let me have a scan of the photo of Charles Henry and Susannah. Well she did better than that – she let me have access to the tree and permission to copy all the photos!

So here we have Charles Henry and Susannah with their two children, Winifred and George, and Susannah’s father (the paperhanger and painter). The second photo is of Charles Henry and Susannah in later life with a baby who is thought to be one of their grandchildren,

Look how women’s fashions changed during Susannah’s lifetime.

So, then I started searching the cemetery registers for other members of the family who might be buried here in Radnor Street. Charles and Susannah’s daughter Winifred died in 1988 aged 80 and she is buried here with her husband Victor in plot C1684. Then we have Charles Henry’s brother Ernest, he died in 1962 and is buried with his wife Ivy and two members of her family in E7909. Ernest also worked as a stationer. Here’s a charming photo of them with their baby son Peter.

This is Julia Crook nee Witts, Ernest and Charles Henry’s sister. Here she is with her husband Sidney Crook and two of their daughters. Their eldest daughter, Lilian Florence Crook, died aged just 4 months old and is buried in a public or pauper’s grave with seven others in C263. The second photo is of Sidney and Julia Crook in later life.

Sidney died in November 1967 and Julia in March 1968 and they are buried in plot C1685.

But that’s not the end.

This is Caroline and Charles Witts, the parents of Charles Henry, Ernest and Julia (plus at least three other children). Charles died in 1927 and is buried with Caroline who died in 1940 in grave plot D341 with another woman (possibly their daughter Annie Maria who died in 1935).