Tag: Spanish flu

Elsie Annie Moody – Telephone & Telegraph Operator

The re-imagined story …

In the Spring of 1918 the Spanish flu began its insidious spread around the world, although we weren’t calling it that then – it was just influenza.

Transmitted by the movement of troops and exacerbated by malnourishment and poor hygiene somewhat surprisingly the virus preyed not upon the vulnerable young or the fragile elderly, but upon fit and healthy young adults. My friend Elsie took ill in October of that same year.

Elsie and I began work together in the Telephone and Telegraph Department in the Works on New Year’s Day 1912. We finished our training three weeks later and became qualified operators in the Engineers’ Office. We were both ambitious, but in point of fact there were few opportunities for promotion once inside the claustrophobic telephone exchange. I stayed there until I got married, and to be honest I wasn’t sorry to leave.

During two long years the Spanish flu killed an estimated 20-50 million people – 228,000 in Britain alone. Later it would be revealed that October 1918 would be the month with the highest mortality rate of the entire pandemic.

They published a little piece about Elsie in the Great Western Railway Staff Magazine. They said she passed away as a result of an attack of pneumonia following influenza.

The facts …

Elsie Annie Moody was born on March 25, 1896 the daughter of Caleb Charles Moody a painter labourer in the Carriage Works and his wife Ellen. Elsie was one of only two surviving children from their family of five.

UK Railway Employment Records 1833-1956

Elsie entered the GWR as a Telephone & Telegraph Learner on January 1, 1912. She completed her training on January 22 and worked as a qualified operator in the Engineers Office on a commencing salary of 4/- a week rising to 26/- shortly before her death.

Miss Elsie Moody, of the Staff of the Swindon Works Telephone and Telegraph Office, passed away on October 23rd, 1918, as the result of an attack of pneumonia following influenza. Her cheery disposition had made her very popular with the staff.

Great Western Railway Magazine

Radnor Street Cemetery Burial Registers

Moody, Elsie Annie 22 years 19 Islington Street 28th Oct 1918 (burial) plot E7824.

Elsie’s parents were later buried with her in the same grave.

Henry Clifton Bassett – Superintendent of the Swindon Wesleyan Circuit

Non conformity had a small presence in Swindon until the arrival of a large industrial workforce who came from across the country to work in the Great Western Railway. In fact the large number of nonconformists who wished to bury their loved ones without the rites of the Church of England was a contributing factor to the building of Radnor Street Cemetery.

This is the grave of Wesleyan Minister, Henry Clifton Bassett. Born in St. Stephens, Launceston, Henry was the son of agricultural labourer John Bassett. John must have been ambitious for his son as the 1871 census reveals that 12 year old Henry was a boarder at a school in Launceston.

By 1881 Henry, then aged 22, was a Wesleyan Minister lodging in Paignton with William Anderson, a joiner and carpenter, and his family. In 1884 he was employed at Lerwick with John H. Hooper, working on the Shetland Isles circuit.

He married Mary Ann Read in 1887 and the couple had three children – a daughter Hilda Constance and two sons, Clifton Read and Henry Norman.

Death of the Rev. H.C. Bassett

Swindon Circuit Wesleyan Supt. Minister

We regret to record the death of the Rev. Henry Clifton Bassett Supt. of the Swindon Wesleyan Circuit, which took place at his residence, Eastcott House, Regent circus, Swindon, last Saturday afternoon, at the age of 60 years.

The rev. gentleman was born at St. Stephens, Launceston, Cornwall, and had been in the Wesleyan Ministry for 36 years, holding important appointments in a large number of Circuits, more recently as Superintendent. Among the town in which he laboured were Newton Abbot, Lostwithiel, Northampton, Barton-on-Humber, Accrington, Sheffield, Darleston, Willenhall, Whitby, Selby, and latterly at Swindon.

The term of a minister’s tenure in a Circuit is three years. It speaks much for the popularity of Mr Bassett that after serving his full term in most of the Centres in which he has ministered he has been invited to remain for a longer period, so acceptable has his preaching and his work generally been to the people.

He came to Swindon from Selby in September 1917, as Supt. of the Circuit. His principal reason for coming South was the health of his wife, who had been in indifferent health for some years, Mrs Bassett being unable to withstand the rigours of the northern climate.

Mr Bassett had always enjoyed good health. He was an extremely hard and conscientious worker, a circumstance which in point of fact brought about the illness which ended in his death. He overtaxed his strength in visiting and preaching during the prevailing epidemic of influenza with the result that after preaching on Sunday, December 8th at the Wesleyan Central Mission, he arrived home from the evening service utterly exhausted. Dr. Lavery was summoned, and Mr Bassett was ordered to bed, from which he was never able to rise. His case was diagnosed at first as influenza. His heart became affected and pneumonia supervened. On Christmas Eve Dr. J. Campbell Maclean was called in in consultation, and his report as to Mr Bassett’s condition was grave.

Death took place on Saturday afternoon, in the presence of his wife and daughter and a trained nurse who had been in attendance.

Deceased leaves a widow, two sons, and a daughter. One of the sons is engineer to the Sunderland Corporation and the other is serving as an apprentice in the Great Western Works at Swindon.

Sympathetic references were made in all the Wesleyan Churches in the Circuit on Sunday to the great loss the Church had sustained in the Connexion by the death of the Rev. Clifton Bassett.

The funeral took place on Wednesday. There was a service at Wesley Chapel at 2.30, conducted by the Rev. H.W. Perkins, assisted by the Ministers of the Circuit and neighbourhood, and an address was delivered by the Chairman of the District, the Rev. Grainer Hargreaves of Oxford.

The Faringdon Advertiser, Saturday, January 25, 1919.

Henry Clifton Bassett was buried on January 22, 1919 in grave plot D1304 where he was joined by his wife Mary Anne in 1923. The cremated remains of their daughter Hilda Constance was buried with them in 1975 and their son Henry Norman in 1986.