GREAT WAR CENTENARY: Bertie Mendham

Bertie John Mendham, to give him his full Sunday name, was born on 22 May 1884 in East Wretham, Norfolk, seventh of the nine children of Thomas & Mary (nee Freeman).  He was the older brother of Ernest Tom Mendham, who I remembered three weeks ago.

Christened on 5 July 1884 in East Wretham, Bertie was my third cousin four times removed. and he moved with the family to Streatham, London, by 1901.  By the age of 16 he was a porter and the 1911 census shows him working as a printer and living in Upper Tooting.  Towards the end of that year he married Daisy and they begat two children - Daisy, and Albert who was to die in the next war.

He enlisted in the Queen's (Royal West Surrey) Regiment and died on 28 June 1917.  With no known grave he is commemorated, along with his brother, on the Menin Gate memorial.

We will remember them.

GREAT WAR CENTENARY: Albert Pridmore

Today I remember a man who has already had a mention in this blog in 1914: Albert Pridmore, my sixth cousin a few times removed, was born in Wittering, near Peterborough, in 1879.  He was the second of the eleven children (nine boys, two girls) of William & Sarah, nee Culpin, who moved to the Sheffield area soon after he was born.  After schooling in the town, Albert worked as a labourer.

In 1913 he married Margaret Richardson in Sheffield and they begat five children before Albert enlisted in the Yorks & Lancs Regiment and was sent to France & Flanders to join the Expeditionary Force from January 1916.  He was wounded in action on 2 May 1917 and repatriated to Bradford Military Hospital.

Where he died one hundred years ago today.  He was buried in Burngreave cemetery in Sheffield.

We will remember them.

GREAT WAR CENTENARY: Ernest Tom Mendham

Ernest Mendham was born in 1886 in East Wretham in Norfolk, eighth of the nine children of Thomas and Mary (nee Freeman).  Christened in the local church on 8 August that year, he was next "seen" in the 1901 census, with the family in Streatham, south London.  In 1909 he married Lily Hudson and the family lived in Upper Tooting in 1911; he was a librarian's clerk.

In 1914, or thereabouts, he enlisted, at Clapham Junction, in the London regiment.  He died in Flanders on this day in 1917 and has no known grave.  Along with thousands he is commemorated on the Menin Gate memorial.

We will remember them.

GREAT WAR CENTENARY: Charles William Rumbelow

Charles William Rumbelow was my fifth cousin twice removed, the eldest of five children (four boys & one girl) of George and Laura (nee Mace).  Born in 1897 in the village of Wicken in Cambridgeshire, he seems to have lived in the village all of his short life.  Aged only three in the 1901 census, he was at school by 1911 - then living with his grandparents.

And that is all I know about him; other than that he died one hundred years ago today, in Birmingham, having been serving with the Queen's (Royal West Surrey) Regiment.  He is buried in the churchyard in Wicken.

We will remember them.

Great War Centenary: Percy Poulter

Percy Poulter was my 5th cousin three times removed (our mutual ancestor was Richard Culpin, born circa 1685) and was born in Shillington, Beds, in 1883.  The fifth of eight children of Thomas and Emma (nee Culpin), he was working on the family farm in Campton, near Shefford, in 1901 but joined the Royal Lancers before 1911.  The census of that year very helpfully gives his location as "Egypt, Sierra Leone, South Africa and Sudan"..... so I have no idea where he was!

Sadly I do know that he died of wounds in France on 25 May 1917 and is buried in Tincourt New British Cemetery.

We will remember them.

This little piggy went to........

A chance find in the BURY FREE PRESS of 12 February 1954: 

PIGS THROWN OUT OF VAN IN CRASH

ONE HAD TO BE DESTROYED

One of five pigs which were thrown out of a ten cwt. Van taking them to the Elmswell Bacon Factory met premature death in a crash on the ice road near Rougham Estate Office on Monday.  The two vehicles involved were a van driven by Mr Reginald Staden, baker, of 41, Out Westgate, Bury St Edmunds, and a British Road Services lorry, drive by Mr Arthur Tyre, of “The Lilacs”, Mendlesham Green, Stowmarket.

THROWN OUT

All the pigs were thrown out of the van and one of them sustained a broken leg and had to be destroyed.  Both the drivers had minor injuries – facial cuts and bruises.

I am resolutely not laughing......

More soon.

Source:  www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk

Check, check, check........again, again!

Cousin Bob and I have been working on getting our early Langfords right.  Bob has cracked it and I've been re-inputting a few ('000s) of Langford rellies.  And it was in search of their various sources that I was looking on FreeBMD for them, born between 1880 and 1890.

And there he was: an additional Freeman Langford.  Ooo-er!  A quick check on the "new" GRO indexes showed me that his mother's name was Quince.  That's my great-grandmother, btw, my primary family.

So he fitted between William and Lilian, and clearly before the Freeman who came after Lilian.  He wasn't christened in Stretham with his younger siblings so I used the CFHS new search.  And found him being done in the Wesleyan Methodist in Ely..... along with John, Ellen, and Lilian.

Suspicion now abounding that there might be another sibling to fit into another four-year gap, I went back to the GRO indexes and found Kate, born in 1885.  Another Kate? But my grandmother, Kate, wasn't born until 1889....!

So, brain fog lifting slightly, I realised that Freeman and Kate must both've died before their younger versions were born.  No sign of them in the Ely district so, on a whim, I widened the search to all of England.

And there they were: 1886 in Sheffield.  Sheffield?  FMP gave me Kate's christening in the Cathedral in 1885, and another search found me "The Original Sheffield Indexers", who have kindly indexed various graveyards in the city.  Success - Langford, Freeman (child, age 4) and Langford, Kate (child, 9m) buried five days apart in the City cemetery.

So now I'm very excited that I've found these two.  And slightly boggled.....

More soon.