Frederick Beman, Bricklayer of Maidenhead and his wife Mary Beman - A Fall from Scaffolding

Memorial to Frederick Beman and Mary Beman. St Luke's Churchyard, Maidenhead, Berkshire, England.

"Sacred To The Memory of 

Frederick Beman 

Who died August 6 th 1883 

Aged 67 years.  

Also of 

Mary 

Wife of the above 

Who died February 2nd 1885 

Aged 76 years. 

- come to me; all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest -"

Frederick, a bricklayer and plasterer, was born in 1816 in Farnham Royal, Buckinghamshire, England to William Beman and his wife Margaret Pusey.

Mary Beman was born Mary Hutton in 1808 in Cookham, Berkshire, England to Joseph Hutton and his wife Anne Wigg

In 1838 in Maidenhead, Frederick married Mary Hutton.  Their first child, a son James, soon followed in 1840.  It later became apparent that little James was deaf.

The young couple first appear on the 1841 living in Ives Cottage, Forlease Lane, Maidenhead, Berkshire, along with their eight month old son, James.

1843 saw the birth of a daughter, Ann.  Followed in 1848 by a second daughter, Mary.

1851 and the family is still living at Forlease Lane in Maidenhead.  In 1853 a third daughter, Sophia was born.  Sadly in 1855, young James passed away aged 15.

1861, Frederick and his family are still living in Forlease Lane in Maidenhead.

In 1862, two men, Joseph Wise and Richard Scott were charged of having on the 6th December 1862 stolen 22 heads of cabbage to the value of 2s, 6d, the property of Frederick Beman of Bray Parish.

On Tuesday 26th June 1866 Frederick Beman accidentally fell from a scaffold whilst carrying out work on a building at Monkey Island, Bray, Berkshire, breaking his leg. The Reading Mercury reported:

"Accident-

On Tuesday last, Frederick Beman, a bricklayer, while at work on a building near Monkey Island, fell from the scaffold and broke his leg." 

1871, Frederick and his family are still living at Forlease Lane, Maidenhead.  Mary Sr was now listed as being deaf.  Mary Jr has left the family home to work as a housemaid for Jane Beckwith in Marlow Road, Maidenhead.  Sophia is working from home as a dress maker.  On 4th July 1871, one of Frederick's labourers, George Henry Ford, suffered a fatal fall from some scaffolding at St Michael's Church in Bray.  Frederick reported to the inquiry  -

"I had been repairing the interior plastering of Bray Church, and Ford was my labourer.  I saw him go up the scaffold; he took a pail, turned round, and then jumped off the scaffold.  I did not see his foot slip.  It was a very damp morning, he had just been out to fetch us some beer, when he told me his foot slipped and he jumped to save himself."

George Henry Ford had badly broken his left thigh and despite immediate medical assistance being given, he later died from Erysipelas on 22nd July 1871.  A verdict of Accidental Death was recorded.


In 1872 Sophia married William Mayers, a sign writer and house painter.

In 1881, just two years before Frederick passed away, the family moved to 47 Moffatt Street in Maidenhead.  Living with the family at the time is granddaughter Sarah Beman.

On 6th August 1883, Frederick passes away, followed by his wife Mary on 2nd February 1885.

Cemetery Sunday - Air Transport Auxiliary Graves

 

ATA - Air Transport Auxiliary Graves, All Saints Maidenhead Cemetery, Maidenhead, Berkshire, England.

 

Throughout World War Two many personnel lost their lives whilst transporting planes, some of them damaged in battle, to various locations around Britain and France.

 

 

 

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World War Two: Lance Corporal Anthony Montague Garrett-Cox - Intelligence Corps - Died by Suicide, and his brother Lieutenant Guy Henry Garrett-Cox Royal Navy Volunteer Reserve H.M.S Helca - Torpedoed off the Coast of Morocco

Sometimes when you set out to research a person you stumble onto tales of bravery and tragedy.  This is one such story.

What intrigued me about this family at first was the fact that Lance Corporal Anthony Montague Garrett-Cox is the only war grave in the small churchyard of St Luke's Church in Maidenhead, Berkshire.  Why was Anthony here on his own when his comrades in both world wars that died at home were buried at All Saints Maidenhead Cemetery?

Details where few and far between.  I managed to find out through the Commonwealth War Graves commission that Anthony's parents were R Garrett-Cox and Gladys Irene Garrett-Cox of Maidenhead.  Their double barrelled surname, instead of making research easier, made it much harder.  Through searching the name via Google I discovered that a second Garrett-Cox, Lieutenant G H Garrett-Cox, had served and died in the Second World War and was commemorated along side Anthony on the Maidenhead War Memorial.  This was too much of a coincidence, they had to be related in some way.

Searching with the forename Garrett and the surname Cox, I was able to find Lieutenant Guy Henry Garrett-Cox's information on the Commonwealth War Graves website.  Lieutenant Guy Henry Garrett-Cox served in the Royal Navy Volunteer Reserve aboard the H.M.S Helca and died on 12th November 1942.

Guy Henry and Anthony Montague were brothers.  Both were born in Maidenhead to Samuel Henry Reuben Garrett-Cox, A music professor and organist at St Luke's Church in Maidenhead, and Gladys Irene Carter.  Guy Henry had been born in 1911 and Anthony Montague on 27th October 1914.  They were Reuben and Gladys's only children.

Anthony Montague appears on the 1939 Register living in Hollow Road, Bury St Edumunds, Suffolk, where he was working as an executive at the British Sugar factory.

Just before the outbreak of World War Two on 1st May 1939, Guy Henry married Rosemary Simpson-Hayward in Celyon, Colombo.  On 17th September 1941 they celebrated the birth of their son, Martin Hayward Garrett-Cox.

Anthony enlisted with the Intelligence Corps of the British Army and was sent to Mauritius.  Guy enlisted with the Royal Navy Volunteer Reserve and was stationed on the H.M.S Helca.

During his time in Mauritius, Anthony was attacked and left for dead, he returned home to England where he was sent to hospital.  Sadly the attack in Mauritius left more than physical scars for Anthony and on 4th August 1941, Anthony took his own life.  The Derby Evening Telegraph reported on 6th August 1941 -

"INJURED AND LEFT FOR DEAD

The suggestion that his mind may have been affected by an attack in Mauritius three years ago was made at the Westminster Inquest, to-day, on Lance Corporal Anthony Montague Garrett-Cox, aged 26, of the Intelligence Corps, who shot himself through the head with a revolver.

His father, Mr, Reuben Garrett-Cox, of Maidenhead, said that in Mauritius his son had been struck on the head eight times with a motor jack, and left for dead. 

He was in hospital for three months.

Recording a verdict that the Lance Corporal 'committed suicide while of unsound mind.' The coroner said that the Mauritius injury might have had some bearing on the state of his mind."


It must have been a terrible shock for Anthony's parents ,and brother.  To get their loved one back from the brink of death, only to lose him three years later.  Sadly, tragedy was about the strike the family again.  Just fifteen months later, Mr and Mrs R. Garrett-Cox were to lose their only surviving child, Guy.

Between the 11th and 12th November 1942, the H.M.S Helca was torpedoed just off the coast of Morocco by a German U-Boat U-515.   Of the 838 men aboard, 556 were rescued, 12 known to have been killed and 273 reported missing, presumed killed.  Lieutenant Guy Henry Garrett-Cox was one of the missing, presumed dead .  Guy Henry Garrett-Cox's body was never recovered.  He is commemorated on the Plymouth Naval Memorial and the Maidenhead War Memorial.

On 2nd December 1942 the Maidenhead Advertiser reported:

"Lieut. G. H. Garrett Cox, R.N.V.R.

Reported Missing.

Mr. and Mrs. R Garrett Cox, 16, Craufurd Rise, Maidenhead, have been informed that their son, Lieut.. Guy Henry Garrett Cox, R.N.V.R., has been reported missing.

Lieut. Garrett Cox was born in Maidenhead and was educated at Eastbourne College. On leaving school he went to Ceylon as a tea planter. He was a member of the Ceylon Mounted Defence Rifles for ten years and he joined the Navy in 1940. Aged thirty, he leaves a widow and a small son aged one year. In 1939 he married Rosemary, daughter of  the late Capt. G. H. Simpson-Hayward and Mrs Simpson-Hayward Icomb Place, Stow-on-the-Wold, Gloucestershire.

Mr. and Mrs. Garrett Cox's younger son, Mr. Anthony Montague Garrett Cox (26), who was in the Intelligence Corps, died a year ago."

In that same issue the following announcement appeared:

"Deaths

Garrett-Cox.- In November, 1942, missing, presumed killed in action, Lieut. G. H. Garrett-Cox, R.N.V.R., dearly-loved husband of Rosemary and father of Martin, Icomb Place, Stow-on-the-Wold, only surviving son of parents at Maidenhead. No letters please."

For more information on the torpedoing of the H.M.S. Helca and the resulting rescue efforts, please click here.

Rosemary remarried in 1953 to Jeston Homfray in Westminster, Middlesex, they later emigrated to Victoria, Australia, where Rosemary passed away on 17th October 1985. Rosemary and Guy's son Martin was to pass away on 24th October 2003 In Dunblane, Stirlingshire, Scotland.

Samuel Henry Reuben Garrett-Cox passed away in 1966 in Maidenhead and Gladys Irene passed away on 20th October 1980 in Maidenhead.  The loss of both their sons must have weighed greatly upon them.

Cemetery Sunday - The Fallen

 

Commonwealth War Grave of Lance Corporal A. M. Garrett- Cox Intelligence Corps.  4th August 1941 aged 26.

 

Son of R, Garrett-Cox and Gladys Irene Garrett-Cox of Maidenhead.

 

 

 

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Joseph Humpfry Fuller and his family - Millers of Ray Mill Island - Brewers of the Bell Brewery

Monument to Charles John Fuller, Emily Charlotte Fuller, Elizabeth Rebecca Fuller, Joseph Fuller and Alice Hambly Fuller, St Luke's Churchyard, Maidenhead, Berkshire, England.

"To The Memory Of 

Charles John Fuller 

Died Decr 16th 1872 

aged 3 weeks 

- Of such is the kingdom of heaven - 

Also Emily Charlotte Fuller 

Died March 9th 1884 

aged 23 years 

- Whom the Lord loveth the Lord chasteneth - 

Also Elizabeth Rebecca Fuller 

wife of Joseph Fuller 

Died November 4th 1884 

aged 54 years 

- Her children arise up and call her blessed; her husband also and he praiseth her - 

Also Joseph Fuller 

Passed away March 11th 1917 

aged 91 years 

- Blessed are the dead which die in the Lord - 

Also Alice Hambly Fuller s

econd wife of the above 

Died Jan 13th 1927 - Asleep in Christ."

Joseph Humpfry Fuller was born in Maidenhead in 1826 to John Humpfry Milhern Fuller and his wife Charlotte.

The Fuller family in Maidenhead established Fuller, Story, & Company and built Bell Brewery in Maidenhead in 1852.

The first Census I can find Joseph on is the 1851 Census, he is living at his uncle Thomas Fuller's house in Wallingford, Oxfordershire. His occupation is given as a miller.

Elizabeth Rebecca Silcock was born in Ingoldisthrope, Norfolk, to George Silcock and his wife Mary Chadwick Stanton.

The first record of Elizabeth I was able to find, after her christening, was the 1851 Census where she is living in Heacham, Norfolk with her widowed mother Mary and her younger siblings, Martha, and Francis.

1861 finds the newly married Joseph and Elizabeth living at the flour mill on Ray Mill Island, Maidenhead, Berkshire, along with their 10 month old daughter Emily Charlotte. 

Joseph and Elizabeth's family continued to grow, in 1862 they welcomed their first son Francis Joseph, 1864 saw the birth of their second daughter Jessie Mary, 1865 another daughter Annie Grant was born and another daughter Gertrude Elizabeth in 1866.  A second son Alfred Bell was born in 1868 followed by another daughter, Marion in 1870.  Sadly a third son Charles John was born in 1872 only to pass away three weeks later.

In 1871 Joseph and his family are still living at Ray flour Mill in Maidenhead Berkshire.

In 1881 Francis Joseph has left the family to work as a clerk at a corn exchange in Clapham London and Alfred has been sent to a boarding school in Hove, Sussex.  Joseph, Elizabeth, and their remaining children have moved to Calcot House, Craufurd Rise, Maidenhead, Berkshire.

Sadly just three years after the census was taken, both Emily Charlotte and Elizabeth Rebecca were dead.

Emily Charlotte passed away on 9th Match 1884. On 15th Match 1884 the Maidenhead Advertiser carried the following announcer:

"Deaths-

March 8 [sic], at Calcot House, Maidenhead, Emily Charlotte Fuller, eldest child of Joseph and Elizabeth Fuller, aged 23."

Elizabeth Rebecca passed away 4th November 1884. On 8th November 1884 the Maidenhead Advertiser carried the following announcement:

"Deaths-

Fuller-On the 4th inst Calcot House, Maidenhead, Elizabeth Rebecca (Bessie), wife of Joseph Fuller, in her 55th year."

 
In 1886 in Barton Regis, Gloucestershire, Joseph married his second wife, Alice Hambly Edmonds.

Alice Hambly Edmonds was born 3rd Aril 1838 to Henry Edmonds, a merchant and his wife Elizabeth.  Alice's father died when she was young, leaving her mother a widow at the age of 27.  Through the 1861 Census until her marriage to Joseph, Alice lived with her uncle George Edmonds, a chemist and druggist in Surrey.

In 1891 Joseph and his second wife Alice are living at 2 Craufurd Terrace in Maidenhead, Berkshire.  Joseph's children from his first marriage have all left home to live in various locations throughout the UK.

On 12th June 1894 at St Luke's Church, Jessie Mary Fuller married John Edward Gripper, a retired corn merchant twenty years her senior.

In 1901 Joseph and Alice are boarding in the home of John Vokes, a stone mason, at 3 Clifton Terrace, St Thomas, Hampshire.

By 1911 Joseph and Alice had moved to Hillsboro House, Gringer Hill, Maidenhead, Berkshire.  The house still stands today and is currently subject of a planning dispute.  The current owner wishing to demolish Hillsboro House and it's Coach House to erect apartment housing.  The planning office is against this.

Six years later Joseph passes away on 11th March 1917.  On 28th March 1917 the a letter to the Maidenhead Advertiser read:

"Another Nonogenarian Passes Away

I was very sorry to learn from the Advertiser that Mr. Joseph Fuller had passed away. *I have been unable to locate this article* He was one of the few nonogenarians in Maidenhead, and he held the proud record of having been born in Maidenhead, Where he resided all his life. Mr. Fuller will always be remembered for his association with Ray Mills, adjoining Boulter's Lock. In his History of Maidenhead, Mr. J. W. Walker reminds us that Boulter was not a person at all. "To 'bolt' he explains, "is to perform one of the operations of milling, and a 'bolter' is a miller. This is not the lock of Mr. Boulter; it is the miller's lock'. Formally, a brewery stood next to the mill, one of the partners in which was Mr. Bell. In the process of time. Bell' Brewery was purchased by Messrs. Fuller and removed to the centre of the Borough, and when a new hotel rose near to the same, the original proprietors name was perpetuated in the sign of the 'Bell' Hotel."  Mr. Fuller continued to be the moving spirit of Ray Mills until a few years ago, when the Thames Conservancy purchased the mills and island in connection with the extension and improvement of Boulter's Lock and the erection of the mechanical craft elevator which so greatly relieved the lock pressure on busy pre-war operation. Mr. Fuller possessed remarkable vitality, and up to within a few days of his death was out walking with almost a youthful spring and speed, or riding his tricycle through our busy streets. We shall all greatly miss the familiar form of Mr. Joseph Fuller, a very highly esteemed life long resident."

Alice Hambly Fuller was to pass away 13th January 1927.

Cemetery Sunday - Cliveden War Cemetery

 

 

Cliveden War Cemetery, Cliveden House, Near Taplow, Buckinghamshire, England.

 

 

For a previous post on Cliveden War Cemetery, please click here.

 

 

 

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Commonwealth First World War Gave - Private Reginald John Pope 4th Battalion Wiltshire Regiment and his brother Frederick Elias Pope - Prisoner of War in Germany

For the month of November in honour of Armistice Day we will be revisiting the local war graves I have researched.  This post was originally published 26th September 2012.

 

 

 

"They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old.

Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn.

 At the going down of the sun and in the morning

We will remember them".

 

 

 

Reginald John Pope was born on 22nd July 1900 in Whymondham Norfolk to Elias Pope, a crockery hawker, and his wife and Sarah Elizabeth Betts.  Reginald's family were travelling folk who sold their wares up and down the country.  On the 1911 Census the family are shown living in 'a gypsy caravan' at Blackamore Lane, Maidenhead, Berkshire, with their eight children, many of whom, including Reginald were attending a local school. Sometime before 1916 Reginald and his family settled down at 22 Kings Street where Elias became a coffee dealer.

 

Reginald served in the 4th Battalion of the Wiltshire Regiment and may have fought in the Battle of Megidoo. Sadly he died in Maidenhead on 19th October 1918. On 6th November 1919 the following announcement appeared in the Maidenhead Advertiser:

"Mr. and Mrs. E Pope desire to to thank all kind friends for sympathy shown to them in the loss of their two sons; also flowers sent."

 

Reginald's brother also served in the First World War with the 1/5th Battalion Durham Light Infantry. He became a prisoner of war  in Germany after being reported as missing on 9th April 1918. Frederick was later discharged as unfit due to disability in September 1919.



Ann Ballantine widow of James Arthur Ballantine, Ship Broker of Bristol

Monument to Ann Ballantine, St Luke's Churchyard, Maidenhead, Berkshire, England.

"In Loving Memory of 

Ann 

widow of 

Joseph A Ballantine of Bristol 

who fell asleep 

Sept 3rd 1884 

Aged 77 years."

Ann Ballantine was born  Ann Jones in Shapwick, Somerset in 1807 to William Jones and his wife Elizabeth Hockey.

On 18th September 1830 at the Church of St Michael the Archangel, Bristol

Sadly Ann and Joseph were to lose their first son William James Ballantine at the age of 2 in 1837.

Ann and Joseph first appear on the 1841 Census living in Queen's Square, Bristol with their three young children, Jane, Arthur, and Joseph. Joseph Sr's occupation is listed as a ship broker.  In 1842 Joseph's ship broker and insurance partnership with Thomas Robson Jackson was dissolved.

On the 1851 Census  the family were living at Richmond House in Bristol, Gloucestershire.  Living with them at the time are their six children, Jane, Arthur, Joseph, Harriet, Edmund, and Ellen as well as their niece and nephew Elizabeth, and Thomas Jackson. Joseph Sr's occupation is now given as an accountant. In 1852 the family welcomed another daughter, Sarah.

Sadly in 1856 Joseph Arthur Ballantine passed away in Swansea.

Five years later in 1861 the widowed Ann is still living in Bristol with five of her children, Jane and Arthur had left the family by 1861.  Harriet had married James Whyte, a provisions store owner in 1859 and had a daughter Annie Harriet born at sea in 1861.  Still living with the family is Ann's niece Elizabeth Jackson. Ann received an annuity from Joseph's will.

In 1871 Ann can be found living at 11 Devon Place in Newport, Wales with her son Joseph and youngest daughter Sarah.

1881, just three years before Ann's death, she can be found living with her son Joseph and her daughter Ellen at 24 St Mary's Road, Kensington, the lodgings house run by her eldest daughter, Jane Ballantine.

Ann was to pass away on 3rd September 1884 in Maidenhead, Berkshire.

Cemetery Sunday - Lean On Me

 

Fallen gravestone propped against a footstone, St Luke's Churchyard, Maidenhead, Berkshire, England.

 

 

 



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