Tuberculosis was one of the main causes of death in the early 20^th century and the most common cause for medical discharge from the armed services during the Great War.

Living in unhygienic close quarters, suffering from exposure and exhaustion, servicemen were prime candidates; becoming newly infected or suffering the resurgence of a disease lying dormant after a previous attack.

One set of records describe the death of Ordinary Seaman Charles Edwyn Jones as caused by pleurisy and pneumonia, another says empyaemia, which probably come down to the same thing – tuberculosis.

Charles was born on October 8, 1878 at 37 Reading Street, the son of Edwin Jones, a fitter in the Works, and his wife Mary.

Edwin had moved to Swindon from Bristol, but blinded in an accident in the railway factory, Edwin could no longer work at the job he was trained for. However, he went on to lead a full and active life and became Mayor of Swindon in 1920-21.

Charles Edwyn, the second of five children and the only son, chose not to follow his father into the railway factory but worked as a buyer of ladies clothing. At the time of the 1911 census he was working in London and boarding at 53 Eardley Crescent, Kensington. In 1915 he married Ethel Elizabeth Brown.

A Royal Naval Volunteer, Charles was based at the RN Depot Crystal Palace. He died at the Norwood Cottage Hospital on March 17, 1918 aged 39 years. Charles’s wife Ethel was pregnant at the time of his death and a daughter named Edwyna was born that summer.

Charles’s body was returned to Swindon where he was buried on March 21 in grave plot D1575, next to two other Jones family graves.