Swindon in the Past Lane

I have just received the most extraordinarily thoughtful present. For many years I have been researching and writing about Swindon Suffragette Edith New, who ranks as one of the most influential suffragettes along with the Pankhurst family and the Kenney sisters. She scored a number of Suffragette firsts - the first to chain herself to railings as a form of protest, the first to break a window (at 10 Downing Street, no less) and the first Suffragette to go on hunger strike in a Scottish prison. My research into the life and times of Edith New has involved giving talks and tours of the places associated with her here in Swindon and I was part of the Swindon Heritage team who installed a blue plaque on the house where she was born in North Street Swindon. Edith was born on March 17, 1877, the youngest surviving child of Frederic James New and his second wife Isabella. Frederic died before Edith's first birthday, struck by a train while walking along the railway line t...

When Swindon Corporation bought the old Goddard mansion house and 52 acres of parkland, it also acquired the ruins of Holy Rood Church, the town's original parish church.   In 1947 the borough surveyor reported to Town Clerk, David Murray John on the sorry state of the burial ground and chapel at The Lawn.  Many of the tombs had been vandalised with the coverings and side slabs removed while the sheet lead covering on the Goddard family vault had been taken. "In the chapel itself, a number of plaques have been wrenched from the walls and a hole has been cut in the outer wall on the North Side," wrote the inspector.  Sadly even the stone font had been smashed and scattered around the Chapel. It is believed that a church had stood on the site of Holy Rood since Norman times but the earliest mention of one dates from the 12th century when it was given to the Augustinian priory of Southwick by the Pont de l'Arche family. Alongside the burials of Swindon worthi...

In which I search for William Hall, who named his Swindon home Longford Villa after his Irish birthplace, and ended up in Jefferies Land. The inscription on an intricately carved Celtic cross in a prominent place in the Christ Church burial ground provided enough information to start my research. Examples of free standing Celtic crosses have been discovered in Ireland dating back to the 7th century, so it came as no surprise that this memorial was for an Irishman. William Hall was born on September 8, 1815. I found the first reference to him living in Swindon in the online UK Railway Employment Records 1833-1956 when he entered the employment of the Great Western Railway on January 1, 1846 as a clerk. By 1881 he has climbed the professional and social ladder. He describes himself as 'Accountant Loco Dept of GWRailway' and he now lives in an impressive property along The Sands (Bath Road) which he names Longford Villa after his birthplace. But as regular readers of thi...

Sadly Swindon has a poor record for preserving its heritage. So many fine buildings have been lost over the years with the Mechanics' Institute and the Corn Exchange just about hanging on in there. And it would seem that it was ever thus. A church had stood on the site in the Lawn since 1154 and was dedicated to St Mary until the mid 16th century. It was partially restored in 1736 but by the mid 19th century was fast becoming too small for the town's growing population. Christ Church, the new parish church in Old Town, was consecrated in 1851, leaving the old church of Holy Rood abandoned. The Vestry, the seat of local government back in the day, met in March 1853 and after thanking the re-elected Churchwardens Robert Reynolds and Richard Read for their work during the previous year, it was announced that the old parish church would be demolished asap. Did they discuss an alternative use for the building? Did they consider preserving more than 700 years of history? Does...

Swindon solicitor Henry Fox Townsend was feeling as fit as a fiddle when he boarded the 3pm train for Paddington on Thursday December 13, 1894. The purpose of his London visit was to bid farewell to his brother Charles, a tea planter, who was returning to India the following day. The brothers had a table booked at the Holborn Restaurant on the Friday but Charles was to report that Henry failed to turn up. 'Upon the arrival of the train at Paddington it was noticed by one of the railway officials that Mr. Townsend was in an insensible condition, apparently suffering from a fit,' reported the Swindon Advertiser. 'He was at once removed and conveyed to St. Mary's Hospital, where he died shortly afterwards without regaining consciousness. His death at the early age of 34 shocked all who knew him. His friends told how he had recently purchased a property called the Firs in Wroughton where he intended 'settling down and enjoying what appeared to be, in all prob...

A sell out attendance at the talk last night at Central Library, Swindon and how lucky were we to have Tamara, Edith's great-niece as guest of honour? Tamara made the journey from Leicester to share various items from Edith's effects, including her hunger strike medal. These two photographs of Edith were taken approximately 45 years apart.  In both of them she is pictured with her lifelong friend Nea Campion.  The two women met in around 1906 as teachers at St Mary’s Church of England School in Lewisham and Nea was with Edith when she died in 1951. Here they are pictured as young women taking tea – a setting straight out of a period drama. And here they are some 45 years later – Edith puffing on a cigarette – sharing some letters. What incredible times these women lived through. They had won the vote, survived two world wars, witnessed the beginnings of social reform and the creation of the National Health Service. I’m sure you’ll agree, some...

Major Fitzroy Pleydell Goddard's dying request was that his funeral service be as simple as possible and that he wished to be buried in a "plain elm coffin made from timber grown on my estate." The last Lord of the Manor to live at The Lawn, Fitzroy Pleydell Goddard died at the family home on Friday August 12th 1927 and less than three weeks later Fielder and Tuckett, a firm of auctioneers, valuers and surveyors, were called in to catalogue the family treasures. An Inventory of Plate, Pictures, Busts, Statutes, Books and Jewellery fills several typewritten sheets of paper, recording items of both financial and sentimental value.  Items were listed under headings of the rooms where they were observed, for example the Dining Room, the Lobby to Drawing Room, the Blue Room and the Rose Room along with the Gun Room and the Billiard Room. Pages and pages of books are recorded not just from the library but all over the house. An eclectic selection of titles such as Wi...

‘Doc Bishop and Fran Latham were lynched yesterday morning by the settlers living near Watonga, for horse stealing,’ reported the Cheyenne Sunbeam. ‘Both men belonged to a gang that were systematically stealing horses from the settlers and driving them into the Panhandle of Texas.’ While the impressive Morris family memorial at Christ Church contains all the names of newspaper magnet William’s twelve children, one son lies not in the shady churchyard on the hill but in a cemetery in Cheyenne, Oklahoma. Walter George Morris, third son of newspaper editor, proprietor and printer William and his wife Martha was born above the family firm at 10 Victoria Street on March 2, 1852.  Unlike his brothers, Walter chose not to join the staff on the Swindon Advertiser but instead worked as a clerk at the GWR Works in New Swindon.  But by 1872 twenty year old Walter had decided life in Swindon was a little too tame for him and he emigrated to America. With printing ink...

Restoration Man - George Clarke Channel 4’s George Clarke was up in Cumbria visiting a project on a 19 th century church in this week’s episode of ‘Restoration Man’ (Thursday Jan 19). Phil Evans and his partner had paid £128,000 for a dilapidated church in the picturesque village of Gamblesby in the North Pennines. Built in 1868 St John’s had stood empty for eight years when the young couple took on the challenge of converting it into a family home.  The church was built in a mixture of architectural styles and loosely based on the Victorian Gothic Revival.  George took time out from the build to visit the Chapel at Exeter College, Oxford designed by the doyen of Victorian Church architects Scott, but he could have just as easily popped into Swindon to see more examples of the great man’s work. George Gilbert Scott was born on July 13, 1811 at Gawcott, Buckinghamshire, the third son of Rev Thomas Scott and his wife Euphemia Lynch.  Scott moved to London ...

So you've bought the certificates and tracked your family through the census returns back to 1841. Next stop is the parish registers. The keeping of parish registers began in 1538 on the orders of Thomas Cromwell, Henry VIII's Vicar-General, although you will be fortunate if you manage to trace your family back that far. Few of the earliest registers survive, subject to nearly 500 years of the ravages of mice, mould and mayhem. If you are not living in the area where your family hails from this is where the hard work begins! Tracing ancestors in large cities involves dogged determination. My Ruthven ancestors lived in the City of Westminster, but with 11 children all born at different addresses and thirty-eight parish churches in the immediate vicinity, they took some finding. While the Wiltshire and Swindon Archives at Cocklebury Road, Chippenham holds the parish registers for all of Wiltshire, Central Library has microfiche copies of those within the Swindon area, incl...