Tag: The Dolphin

Rose Morse

Sometimes the details are too scant to piece together the before and after stories.

This is the tragic story of a little girl who died in a wash tub in a back garden at 8 Thomas Street, Rodbourne. Sadly, even her name is incorrectly reported – she is Rose Morris, not Morse.

Her father, Charles James Morris, a 36 year old Engine Fitter, died three years later.

What happened to the bereaved wife and mother Hannah Morris?

Even Swindon

Death of a Child. – A little girl named Rose Morse, aged two years, daughter of Charles Morse, fitter in the GWR Works, New Swindon, and residing at 189 Rodbourne Road, met with a sad death on Easter Monday. She was playing with other children in a back garden at 8 Thomas Street, Even Swindon, when she was all at once lost sight of. One of the other children went into the house and asked a lad named Clifford where the lost girl was. He went out and searched for her, and noticing that a piece of sacking was removed from off the top of a wash tub which was “let into” the ground. The tub contained a small quantity of liquid and some grains. Clifford on looking into the tub, saw the poor little child, suspended from the top of the tub, head downwards, quite dead. He at once raised the alarm, and medical aid was sought. Dr. Bromley (Messrs Swinhoe, Howse and Bromley) quickly attended, but pronounced life to be extinct. – On Wednesday, an inquest was held on the body at the Dolphin Inn, by Coroner Browne. After hearing the evidence, the jury, of whom Mr Jonah Hawkins was foreman, returned a “death from suffocation,” and recommended that a proper covering should be placed firm on such tubs as deceased fell into when placed on the ground.

Swindon Advertiser, Saturday, April 27, 1889.

Rose Ethel Morris was buried in plot B1207, an unmarked public grave, on April 27, 1889. She is buried with three other children; two month old George Mills who was buried the previous day and 4 year old Phyllis Holmes and 2 year old Flora Maude Barnes who both died in 1922.

Charles James Morris died in February 1892 and was buried in plot A875, another unmarked public grave, with three other unrelated persons.

Looking towards the Kent Road gate – Section A to the left and Section E to the right.

Martha and George Coster – another ordinary couple

The strapline for this blog is ‘Remembering the ordinary people of Swindon.’ This grave story is about one such ordinary family. George worked as a platelayer with the Great Western Railway, a job described by Will Thorne, a platelayer during this period as The most neglected man in the service. The poorest of any railway employee with little or no opportunity for promotion or advancement.

In 1870 George married Martha Robinson at the parish church in Wroughton where they had both grown up. George and Martha would have 10 children but sadly four of them died young. In 1881 they were living at 13 Oxford Buildings, Rodbourne with three of their children, George’s mother and an unnamed lodger described on the census returns as having “left house.”

By 1891 they were living a 21 Jennings Street where they would remain for more than 20 years. It was where Martha died in 1918.

How many meals did the family sit down to eat in the kitchen? How many Mondays had Martha toiled over the boiler in the scullery, pegging out washing on a line that stretched the length of the garden. Did she dust and polish or was there little furniture to fuss over in the house at No 21 Jennings Street?

Was George a keen gardener, when all that washing wasn’t hanging in the way? Or was he too exhausted after a day’s work to do yet more digging and shifting earth? Was he a member of the Even Swindon Working Men’s Club and Institute, cutting along the backsies for a swift half? Or did he prefer to drink in the Dolphin? But then again, perhaps as a Methodist he didn’t partake of Mr Arkell’s finest.

And what about Hilda, the daughter who was buried with George and Martha. She never married and worked as a domestic servant, that much we know. She died on July 6, 1936 at 30 Twickenham Road, Isleworth, not at her home in Maze Road, Kew, nor at 49 Paxton Road, Chiswick, the address recorded in the burial registers.

So many unanswered questions about one ordinary Rodbourne family.

Martha Coster died at her home in Jennings Street in May 1918 aged 70 years old. She was buried in grave plot C1952 on May 9. Her husband George Coster died at 92 Beaufort Terrace, Rodbourne Road on January 31, 1922. He left effects valued at £266 18s 8d to his daughter Kate Fisher. He was buried on February 4 with Martha. Hilda Coster died on July 6, 1936 aged 53. She was buried with her parents on July 10.