For some considerable time the Davis family memorial stood in a dilapidated, collapsed condition. This was one of the first restoration projects our dedicated team of volunteers undertook.

William Davis was born in Faringdon in 1856, the son of Joseph and Jane Davis. He married Agnes Greenaway, the daughter of John, a farmer in Stratton St Margaret, and his wife Susan. For most of their married life William and Agnes appear to have had a member of the Greenaway family living with them.

William worked as a draper’s assistant and the couple began married life at 14 Edgeware Road. By 1891 they had moved to Rose Cottage next to the catalogue houses on Drove Road.

On one side of the monument you can see the name of Reginald Ernest Davis, the couple’s second son. Reginald had a complicated personal life and a tragic death.

He worked first as a teacher at a local board school here in Swindon. In 1908 he married Rose Louise Gorton in the parish church in Clapham, South London when he described himself as a dairy farmer. Rose’s father was a farmer at South Marston.

The following year Reginald, now described as a clerk, and Rose, emigrated to Canada and in 1916 they were living in Regina, Saskatchewan with their six year old daughter.

The next time I find the couple is at the time of their re-marriage on December 7, 1923, describing themselves as divorcees on the marriage certificate, so presumably they divorced sometime after 1916.

Sadly it was not to be a happy ever after story as less than a year later Reginald committed suicide at his home in Toronto, which is where he is buried.

Moving around the monument we see a reference to William and Agnes’ eldest son. William Harold Davis worked as an agent for a British Merchant in West Africa. In November 1917 he was returning home from a business trip on the SS Apapa when the ship was torpedoed by a Germany submarine off the coast of Anglesey. William was one of 77 people lost.