Mrs H Spurgeon, The Avenue, Great Dunmow, Essex, England

My dear wife and sonny
Received card this morning, Monday. Please to hear you received order. Thank you very much for it and it is very nice. I have sent you one of the Sherwood Foresters I thought perhaps you would like one. Please to hear you are both quite well. I am also. Have you received my letter about Xmas. We saw the New Year in and enjoyed our selves. Do you remember last year how we all enjoyed our selves. Did you hear from any of them this Xmas. Kindly remember me to them and all of them. Will write later. Wishing you a happy New Year from Harry

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Harry’s younger brother, Lance Corporal Victor Spurgeon, the baby of the Spurgeon family,  of the 11th Battalion of the Essex Regiment died aged 28 in France on 8th October 1918 and is commemorated on the Vis-En-Artois Memorial in Pas de Calais.    The memorial has the names of over 9,000 men who fell in battle from 8 August 1918 to 11 November 1918 who have no known grave.

Victor is commemorated on Great Dunmow’s War Memorial.

Great Dunmow’s War Memorial
Victor’s name is immediately underneath the first join

Their Name Liveth For Evermore

1891 Cenus – High Street, Great Dunmow
Spurgeon, Herbert J, Head, aged 42, born 1849 Stambourne, occupation Corn Factors Assistant
Spurgeon, Ann M, Wife, aged 40, born 1851, Great Dunmow
Spurgeon, Grace A, Daughter, aged 16, born 1875 Warboys, Huntingdonshire
Spurgeon, Kate G, Daughter, aged 14, born 1877 Warboys, occupation Dressmakers Apprentice
Spurgeon, Harry B, Son, aged 12, born 1879 Warboys, occupation Scholar
Spurgeon, Ernest H, Son, aged 10, born 1881 Warboys, occupation Scholar
Spurgeon, Mabel J, Daughter, aged 7, born 1884 Broxted, occupation Scholar
Spurgeon, William G, Son aged 3, born 1888 Great Dunmow
Spurgeon, Victor, Son, aged 0 (9mths), born 1891, Great Dunmow

1901 Census – New Street, Great Dunmow
Spurgeon, Herbt, Head Widower, aged 52, born 1849 Stambourne, occupation Late Coal Agent
Spurgeon, Harry, Son, aged 22, born 1879 Warboys, occupation Printer
Spurgeon, Ernest, Son, aged 20, born 1881 Warboys, occupation Clothier’s Assistant
Spurgeon, Mabel, Daughter, aged 17, born 1884 Broxted, occupation Housekeeper
Spurgeon, Wm, Son, aged 13, born 1888 Great Dunmow, occupation Butcher’s Apprentice
Spurgeon, Victor, Son, aged 11, born 1890 Great Dunmow

1911 census
Household of Herbert Spurgeon is not in the 1911 Census – perhaps he was dead by 1911.

1911 Census – High Street Great Dunmow
Spurgeon, Harry Burton, Head, aged 32, born 1879 Warboys, occupation Printer
Spurgeon, Mary, Wife married 5 years, aged 28, born 1883 Great Dunmow

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You may also be interested in
– Memorial Tablet – I died in hell
– Memorial Tablet – I died of starvation
– Memorial Tablet – I died of wounds
– The Willett family of Great Dunmow
– Postcard from the Front – To my dear wife and sonny
– War and Remembrance – The Making of a War Memorial
– Great Dunmow’s Roll of Honour

© Essex Voices Past 2012-2013.

If you know the town and shops of Great Dunmow, then you will know of the newsagents, A Willett & Sons, next to The Saracens Head. Even today, the signage and frontage of the shop is old fashioned and harks back to a more distant time in Great Dunmow’s past. Many of the real photo postcards of the high ways and by-ways of Great Dunmow’s Edwardian past have the name ‘Willett Dunmow’ printed on the bottom left corner.

The Edwardian shop of A Willett and Son (on the left) – on the right, the road leads onto Market Hill and then out towards Church-end.  

During the Great War, Arthur Willett often ‘popped’ out of his shop, took a few steps to the junction of the High Street and Market Hill and took photos of soldiers marching through his town.  Below are two photos from his camera – from the serial numbers on the cards and the date of the second card, the first card would have been taken in the Summer of 1914 (note the leaves on the trees and the straw boater hats worn by some of the crowd).

I did wonder if these were the Sherwood Foresters (the Notts & Derby) who are known to have marched into Great Dunmow from Harlow in 1914.  However, from the Notts & Derby’s accounts, the Sherwood Foresters first came through Great Dunmow between  16 t0 18 November 1914 but looking at the trees and straw boater hats, this photo had to have been taken during the Summer months. Update March 2014: I am now convinced that these are the Staffordshire Yeomanry, who had, for some reason, marched from Bishop’s Stortford to Great Dunmow – see the bottom of this page for more detail.

The soldiers playing their flutes are turning left and so are about to head down Market Hill, so were probably marching onto St Mary’s Church nearly 1 mile away.  I have not been able to trace whose funeral this is.  There is not a casualty buried in Great Dunmow’s church on the Commonwealth War Grave’s Debt of Honour who would match with the date of death of November 1914.  It could possibly be a Sherwood Forester, as they had marched into Great Dunmow 16-18 November and only left the area on 28 December 1914.  However, whoever it is, they are not on either Great Dunmow’s War Memorial or the Commonwealth War Grave’s Debt of Honour as the dates don’t match any casualty buried in St Mary’s churchyard.

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1916 was a terrible year for the newsagent Arthur Willett and his wife Sarah, for they lost two sons to the Great War.  Arthur Albert Willett, aged 25, of the 6th Battalion Essex Regiment died of wounds in a military hospital on 25 February 1916, and was buried in his parish church, St Mary the Virgin, Great Dunmow.  Younger brother, Frank Willett, aged 20, of the 2nd Battalion Essex Regiment was killed in action on the Western Front and died on 23 October 1916.  Frank has has no known grave and so is commemorated on the vast and overwhelming Thiepval Memorial.

Both brothers are commemorated on Great Dunmow’s War Memorial – their inscriptions on the memorial facing down the High Street and towards their father’s shop.

Great Dunmow’s War Memorial with the names of the Willett brothers

Their Name Liveth For Evermore

You may also be interested in
– Memorial Tablet – I died in hell
– Memorial Tablet – I died of starvation
– Memorial Tablet – I died of wounds
– The Willett family of Great Dunmow
– Postcard from the Front – To my dear wife and sonny
– War and Remembrance – The Making of a War Memorial
– Great Dunmow’s Roll of Honour

Updates to this story
Update November 2013: There is an update to the story of Military Funeral postcard here: – War and Remembrance: Military Funeral 1914

Update December 2013: There is another update to the Military Funeral postcard here  1914 Military Funeral – a follow-up

Update March 2014: The 2nd postcard down (Willett’s number 830) has been the subject of much debate between myself and another local historian as to which regiment this was.  I am of the firm believe that it is not the Notts & Derby (the Sherwood Foresters) who arrived in Great Dunmow later on in 1914 (I have a postcard of them parading in the Market in November 1914).  A copy of Willett’s #830 postcard exists with the postmark of August 1914.  That well known auction site a few years ago had a Willett postcard showing troops in Great Dunmow, with the postcard labelled by Willett as being the “Staffs. Yeomanry in Dunmow, Aug 31st, 1914”.  The Staffordshire Yeomanry spent 1914 billeted in Bishop’s Stortford.  I have another postcard from a soldier billeted in Bishop’s Stortford in 1915, possibly a soldier of the Staffordshire Yeomanry (he was writing home to his folks in Staffordshire) about his duties whilst he was billeted in Stortford.  Is my mystery card of soldiers marching through Great Dunmow, the Staffs Yeomanry?  They are certainly coming from the direction of Bishop’s Stortford and are marching in the direction of Church End.  If so, what were the Staffs Yeomanry doing in Great Dunmow when they should have been in Bishop’s Stortford?

© Essex Voices Past 2012-2013.

Men of Essex Recruitment Poster © IWM (before June 1916)

From The Times, 13 December 1918: CAPTAIN FRANK WILLIAM BACON, 1/5th Essex Regiment who died on December 4 aged 36 was the youngest son of Mr James Bacon of Olives, Dunmow, Essex.  A good cricketer, Captain Bacon at the outbreak of the war, was a second lieutenant in the Essex Territorials and was promoted captain of the 1/5th Essex Regiment early in 1915.  He went out to the Dardanelles, and was at the Suvla Bay landings, where he was wounded and invalided home.  He rejoined his regiment in Egypt.  He was wounded in the first battle of Gaze in March 1917, and for the third time in the following November; he died from the effects of his wounds.  He was a most popular officer.  He married on August 7 last, Zennil, daughter of Mr G Grimes of Hook, Hamps.

From Essex and Herts Observer, 14 December 1918: DEATH OF A DUNMOW OFFICER The death occurred on 4th December, of wounds received in Palestine, of Captain Frank William Bacon, youngest son of Mr James Bacon of Dunmow.

Above photo from Dorothy Dowsetts book Dumow through the ages (1969)

Captain Frank William Bacon, of the 1/5 Essex Regiment was educated at Felsted School from January 1894 to July 1900 where he played on the Cricket XI from 1899-1900.  Lt Col Tom Gibbons’ book With 1/5 in the East (1921) recounts that Frank served with the 1/5 Essex Regiment from 23 July 1915 to 2 November 1917 and was wounded twice: 26 March 1917 and 2 November 1917.  The latter injury during the 3rd Battle of Gaza was described by Gibbons: ‘As I entered Rafa redoubt I was surprised to meet Frank Bacon being carried out, his foot badly shattered by a bomb.  He was too much knocked about to stop and question as to how he got there, but the situation was gradually cleared up by further enquiry…‘

Captain Bacon returned home to recover from his injuries where, during the final months of the Great War, he became a member  a committee set-up to establish a War Memorial in Great Dunmow.   Sadly, after succumbing to pneumonia, he became one of the men of the town to be commemorated on that very same memorial.

Frank is commemorated on Great Dunmow’s War Memorial.

Their Name Liveth For Evermore

You may also be interested in
– Memorial Tablet – I died in hell
– Memorial Tablet – I died of starvation
– Memorial Tablet – I died of wounds
– The Willett family of Great Dunmow
– Postcard from the Front – To my dear wife and sonny
– War and Remembrance – The Making of a War Memorial
– Great Dunmow’s Roll of Honour

© Essex Voices Past 2012-2013.

From Essex and Herts Observer, 14 December 1918:  RETURNED PRISONER’S DEATH. – Pte. David Button, 23. M.G.C., who had returned to Dunmow, from Germany where he had been a prisoner of war since April, died at his home on Sunday.  His case was hopeless, due to the starvation he had undergone in Germany and the hardships he endured.

Grave of David William Button, aged 26,
Private in the Machine Gun Corps (Infantry)
and also of the Essex Regiment,
buried in St Mary’s Churchyard, Great Dunmow

Propaganda Poster © IWM (1919)

Census 1901 – Parsonage Down, Great Dunmow
Henry Button, head, married, aged 58, occupation bricklayer, born Great Dunmow
Elizabeth Button, wife, married, aged 45, born Great Dunmow
Henry Button, son, aged 11, born Great Dunmow
William Button, son aged 8, born Great Dunmow (assume this is David)

Census 1911 – Parsonage Down, Great Dunmow
William Hoy, aged 78, married 7 yrs, occupation old age pension, born Essex, Dunmow
Elizabeth Hoy, aged 56, married 7 yrs, born Essex, Dunmow
Henry Button, stepson, 20 years, single, butchers man, born Essex, Dunmow
David Button, stepson, 17 years, single, farm labourer, born Essex, Dunmow

From the rural beauty of Great Dunmow’s Parsonage Down to the horrors of the trenches and a Prisoner of War camp in Germany.
Parsonage Down, 2012
Parsonage Down, 2012
Parsonage Down, 2012

David is commemorated on Great Dunmow’s War Memorial.

Their Name Liveth For Evermore

You may also be interested in
– Memorial Tablet – I died in hell
– Memorial Tablet – I died of starvation
– Memorial Tablet – I died of wounds
– The Willett family of Great Dunmow
– Postcard from the Front – To my dear wife and sonny
– War and Remembrance – The Making of a War Memorial
– Great Dunmow’s Roll of Honour

© Essex Voices Past 2012-2013.

Of all my postcards, my most treasured one is the one below.   The image on the front is a boring country scene of Wandsworth Common, South London in 1907 – nothing remotely interesting.  But it’s words mean so much to me.  The recipient of the card was a Mrs Kemp of the Royal Oak, Great Dunmow (her full name Alice Kemp nee Parnall) and the sender was her niece, Elsie (her full name Elsie Parnall Cole).  A few years ago, the husband of Alice’s great-granddaughter found the postcard on the internet and sent it to me.  Me, the great-niece of the sender, Elsie, of Wandsworth.  More than one hundred years after it was first sent, the recipient’s descendant returned it to the sender’s descendant.  And by a strange quirk of fate, I was by then living in Great Dunmow, totally unaware of my family’s previous connection to the town.  So the card has come home to Great Dunmow a hundred years after it was first sent to the town.

Postmark: Wandsworth, 23 Feb 1907
D. A.
Ma heard from A.B that you had all been very queer.  Hope you are quite well by this.  Weather has been very cold & severe suppose it has been the same with you.  Ma’s eyes are emproving [sic] very slow.  G is pulling a tooth out.  With love Elsie. 

The ‘Ma’ was my great-grandmother, Louisa Cole nee Parnall, Alice’s sister and Elsie’s mother.  The ‘G’ who was pulling a tooth was my young grand-dad, George, then aged only 8 – a man I never knew as he died when I was two.

Sadly, the story of the Kemps of Great Dunmow includes the loss of two beloved sons, Harold and Gordon, killed in action during the Great War.

James Nelson Kemp (husband of Alice Kemp nee Parnall), standing outside his pub, the Royal Oak in Great Dunmow.

Postcard of James Nelson Kemp standing in the doorway of his pub.  His son, Gordon Parnall Kemp on the pony and trap.  Photo taken sometime between James’ arrival at the Royal Oak in c.1906 and his departure in c.1911.  The postcard identified in the local newspaper, the Dunmow Broadcast in August 1978.

“Sir, The picture in the June Broadcast of Stortford Road shows the Royal Oak and the donkey & cart being driven by Gordon Kemp, the son of J N Kemp who used it for delivering. This was probably taken about 1912. My parents and myself took over the Royal Oak (Mr and Mrs W F Strutt) in 1912 and we kept the donkey for a short period. The garden in front & steps remained till 1931 when my father met with a fatal accident on corner of Rosemary Lane and my mother left. The boards across said J N Kemp supplies the public with their requirements and there was a tin mug attached to the pump near the gate into the yard. Memories of the past. Many thanks Ella M Edwards (Mrs) nee Strutt, Pippbrook Gardens, Dorking, Surrey“

Gordon Parnall Kemp, born Edmonton 1887, killed in action 26 September 1917 during the Third Battle of Ypres (the Battle of Passchendaele).  Gunner of the Royal Garrison Artillery, 186th Siege Battery – from 5 September 1917 to 17 December 1917 the 186th Siege Battery was serving under 33rd Heavy Artillery Group.  From the Essex Chronicle, 19 October 1917:

“Mr J N Kemp for many years a resident at Dunmow and now of Yarmouth has received the sad news that his second son, Gordon, has been killed in action in France.“

Voormezeele Enclosures No.1 And No.2,
West-Vlaanderen, nr Ypres, Belgium

Memorial Tablet -by Siegfried Sassoon (1918)
Squire nagged and bullied till I went to fight,
(Under Lord Derby’s scheme). I died in hell –

(They called it Passchendaele). My wound was slight,
And I was hobbling back; and then a shell
Burst slick upon the duckboards: so I fell
Into the bottomless mud, and lost the light

At sermon-time, while Squire is in his pew,
He gives my gilded name a thoughtful stare;
For, though low down upon the list, I’m there;
“In proud and glorious memory” … that’s my due.
Two bleeding years I fought in France, for Squire:
I suffered anguish that he’s never guessed.
I came home on leave: and then went west…
What greater glory could a man desire?

Harold James Parnall Kemp, born Edmonton 1885, of the British South African Police Force, killed in action German East Africa (now Zambia) 28 May 1916.  From the Essex Chronicle, 9 June 1916:

“Mr J N Kemp of the Golden Lion, The Conge, Great Yarmouth for many years resident in Dunmow has received information from the British South Africa Co that his son Harold has been killed in action with the Northern Rhodesian Force.  Harold was educated at the Dunmow Church Schools.  He started in life with the late Mr F J Snelland at his death continued with Mr Gifford, under whose instructions he became very proficient and acting on Mr Gifford’s advice obtained a situation in the Council offices at Sidcup where his instructions stood him in good steed.  From there he joined the R.S.A. Police and became the manager of the Police Review.  When he had served his time he obtained a good situation with Messrs. Arnold and Co of Salisbury and London.  On the outbreak of the war he volunteered for active service and now, alas, his end.  He was a member of the Dunmow church choir from his school days up to the time of his leaving Dunmow and he will be remembered as singing solo in the old church the Sunday before his departure for South Africa.“

From ‘Frontier Patrols – A history of the British South Africa Police and other Rhodesian Forces‘ by Colonel Colin Harding C.M.G., D.S.O. 1938

‘In the general advance of 23rd May, 1916, the Nyasa-Rhodisia Field Force were detained to undertake the three following operations: viz., Colonel  Hawthorn was deputed to attack Ipiana, Colonel Rodger, Mwembe, and Colonel Murray was entrusted with the attack of Namema, 26 miles north-east of Abercon. …none of these operations met with any notable success, for the Ipiana garrison retired without presenting any opposition, the Mwembe garrison opposed our advance for two days and then escaped, and the Namema investment after the duration of a week was rendered futile by the flight of the garrison. On the morning of May 26th, 1916, the time and date selected for an attack on Namema by the Rhodesians, whilst A and B Forces had carried out their instructions, C Force had lost direction and failed to reach its allotted position till the following day. Then rather late in the operation it was discovered that Namema was held by a considerable enemy force and situated in such an invulnerable position that to attack with the present force would have been suicidal; consequently tactical positions were established with the idea of completing the investment of the enemy.

It is with much regret I record that this abortive operation cost us the lives of Corporal Hoal and Privates Kemp, Steele and Short; whilst the Germans lost their commander, who was captured and subsequently died of wounds he received during the engagement. It was on the 3rd of June that the enemy succeeded in breaking through our lines, and, making their escape northwards, were without avail hotly pursued by our troops.’

Great Dunmow’s War Memorial with the names of the Kemp brothers

Their Name Liveth For Evermore

You may be interested in the following post:
– The Cole family of Spitalfields Market (Louisa Cole (nee Parnall) story).
– Memorial Tablet – I died of starvation
– Memorial Tablet – I died of wounds
– The Willett family of Great Dunmow
– Postcard from the Front – To my dear wife and sonny
– War and Remembrance – The Making of a War Memorial
– Great Dunmow’s Roll of Honour

You may also be interested in the following websites:
– Royal Oak, Great Dunmow
– White Horse, Great Dunmow
– Great Dunmow’s War Memorial – my original research, including more photographs and transcriptions of primary sources held in Essex Record Office on Great Dunmow’s War Memorial.

© Essex Voices Past 2012-2013.

This Saturday, 14 July 2012, heralds the much awaited ancient custom of The Dunmow Flitch whereby couples from all over Britain (and, in recent years, the world) come to Dunmow to persuade a formal court that they have not wished themselves unwed for a year and day.  If they win the court case, and persuade the judge and jury of their love for each other, then they win a ‘flitch of bacon’ (a large side of cured pig).  This court is very formal with a judge, jury and barristers: one barrister defends the Pig, and the other is for the couple.  Any couple who wins the Flitch is said to be ‘bringing home the bacon’ and is carried aloft on the ancient Dunmow Flitch chair by ‘yeomans’ in a parade through the streets of the town .  Once the parade arrives in the market place, the winners of the Flitch have to kneel on pointed stones and say The Oath.

The Flitch Oath
You shall swear by the Custom of our Confession
That you never made any Nuptial Transgression
Since you were married Man and Wife
By Household Brawls or Contentious Strife
Or otherwise in Bed or at Board
Offended each other in deed or in word
Or since the Parish Clerk said Amen
Wished yourselves unmarried again
Or in a Twelvemonth and a day.
Repented not in thought any way
But continued true and in Desire
As when you joined Hands in holy Quire

The Sentence
If to these Conditions without all fear
Of your own accord you will freely swear
A Gammon of Bacon you shall receive
And bear it hence with love and good Leave
For this is our Custom at Dunmow well known
Though the sport be ours, the Bacon’s your own.

[This last line is normally said to great rousing cheers from the watching audience.]

If you are in the area of North Essex, I do recommend watching one of these very funny and witty trials.  Sadly, this year’s trials will be without the lovely agony aunt Claire Rayner, who died in 2010.  She was always tremendous fun at the Trials and gave a wonderful performance to the audience.  It was fitting that during the last Dunmow Flitch in 2008, she and her husband took ‘home the bacon’ as they successfully fought their case that they hadn’t argued for a year and a day.  She will be much missed at this year’s Trials.

The ‘custom of the flitch’ appears to have started in the twelfth or thirteenth century by the prior of the priory at Little Dunmow – although no evidence has survived to verify this. The first recorded mention of the Flitch is by William Langland in his 1362 ‘The Vision of Piers Plowman’ and his contemporary, Geoffrey Chaucer in his ‘Canterbury Tales’.  Both of these authors, writing in the fourteenth century, use words that imply that this custom was, at the time of their writings, well known.

In ‘The Wife of Bath’s Tale’, Chaucer said

The bacon was nat fet for hem, I trowe,
That som men han in Essex at Dunmowe.

‘The Wife of Bath’ from Caxton’s second edition of The Canterbury Tales,
(circa last half fifteenth century) shelfmark G. 11586, fol. b5 v, © British Library Board.

In ‘The Vision of Piers Plowman’ Langland wrote

Though they go
to Dunmow,
they never fetch
the Flitch.

William Langland, Piers Plowman (England, 1st half of the 15th century)
shelfmark Harley 2376 f.1, © British Library Board.

Confusingly, there are two places next to each other in Essex called Dunmow:  Great Dunmow and Little Dunmow.  During the  medieval and Tudor period, Little Dunmow was normally styled as ‘Dunmow Parva ’ and Great Dunmow was ‘Muche Dunmow’.  It was within Dunmow Parva that there was Austin priory which, according the Valor Ecclesiasticus of 1535, had the net value of £150 3s 4d.  The priory was dissolved in 1536 under the Act for the Dissolution of the Lesser Monasteries.  However, before it was dissolved, there is recorded instances of the Dunmow Flitch taking place at the Priory in 1445 and 1510.

During the eighteen century, the ancient custom of The Flitch was moved from the village of Little Dunmow to the nearby town of Great Dunmow where it is now held every four years.

British Pathé film archive
The Pathé film archive has some interesting silent film-reels of the Dunmow Flitches held in the 1920s at Ilford: 1920s Dunmow Flitch

Postcards and magazine articles

Dunmow Flitch

A Note on the Flitch Trials held between 1890-1906, and 1912-1913
Between the years 1890 to 1906, and 1912 to 1913, the Dunmow Flitch was held every year within the town and the events of the day reported in newspapers such as Essex County Chronicle, Essex Standard, Essex County Standard, Pall Mall Gazette, and The Sketch.  From these newspapers, the author Francis W Steer of the Essex Record Office in his book The History of the Dunmow Flitch Ceremony drew up a list of all those that took part in the Trials.  This list includes those that claimed the Flitch, members of the jury (young men and women of the area all under 18), barristers and judges.  The judge, barristers, and jury were all chiefly from Great Dunmow and its surrounding villages.

Sadly, these lists contain the names of sons, brothers, lovers, and husbands of many who marched away to war in 1914 never to return to home.  One such person was my grandfather’s cousin, Harold James Nelson Kemp, son of the James and Alice Kemp, first of the White Horse, then of the Royal Oak.  On the 1st August 1904 Harold was one of the young jurymen for the Flitch Trials held in a meadow near the Causeway in Great Dunmow.  On 28 May 1916, he was killed in action in German East Africa (now Zambia). His brother, Gordon Parnall Kemp, was killed in action the following year in the mud and gore of Passchendaele (the 3rd Battle of Ypres).

Mr J N Kemp of the Golden Lion, The Conge, Great Yarmouth for many years resident in Dunmow has received information from the British South Africa Co that his son Harold has been killed in action with the Northern Rhodesian Force.  Harold was educated at the Dunmow Church Schools.  He started in life with the late Mr F J Snelland at his death continued with Mr Gifford, under whose instructions he became very proficient and acting on Mr Gifford’s advice obtained a situation in the Council offices at Sidcup where his instructions stood him in good steed.  From there he joined the R.S.A. Police and became the manager of the Police Review.  When he had served his time he obtained a good situation with Messrs. Arnold and Co of Salisbury and London.  On the outbreak of the war he volunteered for active service and now, alas, his end.  He was a member of the Dunmow church choir from his school days up to the time of his leaving Dunmow and he will be remembered as singing solo in the old church the Sunday before his departure for South Africa.
                                                                          From Essex Chronicle 9 June 1916

Mr J N Kemp for many years a resident at Dunmow and now of Yarmouth has received the sad news that his second son, Gordon, has been killed in action in France.
                                                                 From Essex Chronicle 19 October 1917

If you liked this post, you may also like this
– The Dunmow Flitch Trials 2012

Copyright notice
This article is © Essex Voices Past 2012. Unless otherwise indicated, the images on this post are also © Essex Voices Past 2012.

Update 19 June 2012: thegentleauthor of Spitalfields Life has today published my story with more accompanying photos: The Coles of Brushfield Street

I have long resisted the temptation to publish any stories from my own non-Essex family history on my blog.  But today, because of this post with images of Spitalfields Market and Brushfield Street on the delicious Spitalfields Life blog and the recent BBC programme about the market traders of New Spitalfields Market, I can resist no longer.  For the first time on my blog, I will be publishing a non-Essex story from the Victorian period. Although, if you persevere to the end of this post, you will see how this post is most definitely related to my interest in the local history of Great Dunmow.

I must be among a very rare number of 21^st Century Londoners who can visit the East London home of my ancestors and walk in their steps.  Many of my Victorian ancestors lived in the street of Bishopsgate in the City of London and its neighbouring street, Brushfield Street. Whilst I can no longer visit my ancestors’ substantial Victorian Bishopsgate home and factory, as it was compulsory purchased and swept away in the 1880s by the powerful Great Eastern Railway so they could build the mighty Great Eastern Hotel in its place, I can still visit my ‘ancestral’ home  in Brushfield Street on the edge of Spitalfields Market.  This market is an ancient market that lies on the edge of City of London and for centuries, was THE fruit and veg market of London. Sadly, now, as is the fate of many other ancient markets, it is the home of swanky boutiques, shops and posh eateries with house-prices to match.  If you want to read about the history of the area, then I do recommend the Spitalfields Life blog.

One of the major roads next to Spitalfields Market is Brushfield Street.   Up until the 1870s, Brushfield Street’s name was ‘Union Street East’.  Halfway down, on the right-hand side is a parade of shops all dating from the 18th century.  Many readers of my blog may be familiar with the restored lovely Victorian frontage of the food shop A Gold and the next door women’s fashion shop, Whistles.

Restored shop front of A. Gold, Brushfield Street

Brushfield Street

If you do know these two shops, have you ever looked up above their signage and spotted a small plaque on the wall in between the two?  This is a plaque from 1871 marking the Christchurch Middlesex parish boundary.

Christchurch Parish Boundary marker in Brushfield Street

And here is the same plaque from a photo I took about 20 years ago before the area was redeveloped.

Brushfield Street

Brushfield Street in the late 1990s

There on the wall for all of London to see, is the name of my great-great grandfather, R. A. Cole!

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Robert Andrew Cole was a grocer and tea-dealer – living above his shop and trading from the shop which is now Whistles.   Robert Andrew, along with his wife, Sarah Elizabeth (nee Ollenbuttel) and their five children, William, Sarah, Margaret, Robert and Arthur, all lived in Brushfield Street/Union Street East for some 30 years from the 1850s until the 1880s when the market was redeveloped and Robert Andrew Cole retired to Walthamstow.  As an aside, I do find it ironic that today’s swanky redeveloped Spitalfields Market is now known as Old Spitalfields Market.  In Robert Andrew Cole’s day, it was a brand spanking new, and perhaps an unwanted market with posh new buildings!  Its very existence and construction was probably one of the reasons why the Coles gave up their shop and retired to the countryside of Walthamstow.

For many years, Robert Andrew Cole was also a churchwarden of the nearby stunning Hawksmoor church, Christchurch, Spitalfields and also the Governor and Director of the Poor of the parish of Christchurch Spitalfields.  So he must have been amongst some of the wealthiest of this poor east London parish.   In circa 1869-1870, Union Street East was renamed to Brushfield Street, and it is possibly the renaming of this street which lead to the church boundary being marked in the wall in 1871.  Hence  churchwarden R. A. Cole’s name was recorded for posterity in the brick-work and fabric of Brushfield Street.  He must have been a very proud man when his name was unveiled!

Brushfield Street with Hawksmoor’s Christ Church in the background

However, despite their standing in the community, the Cole’s time in Brushfield Street was not an entirely happy time.  Two of the Cole children, Sarah Elizabeth and William Henry, succumbed to a devastating outbreak of scarletina– at that time a deadly infectious disease for many who caught it.   Both children were buried in Tower Hamlets Cemetery on 2^nd August 1857.  William was aged only 22 months and Sarah was a month short of her 4^th birthday.  One can only imagine the pain and horror of their parents along with their fear and hope that their only surviving child, Robert, then aged 5, wouldn’t also fall victim to this terrible disease.  This must have been an awful time for this one Victorian family living in the shadows of Christchurch Spitalfields and the fruit and veg market.  However, their son Robert, didn’t become another victim (for, if he had, I wouldn’t be writing their story, as he’s my great-grandfather).  Eight months after burying their two children, a new child, Margaret was born, and a further year later, Arthur was born.  Sadly, Margaret also didn’t survive childhood and once again, in 1869, this small family of Union Street East buried one of their own in one of the two Cole family graves in Tower Hamlets Cemetery.

I have often pondered the fate of this small east-end family.  Of the five children, only two survived into adulthood, and of those two, only one had children of his own.  Arthur Cole died a bachelor in his 50s and was buried in the second Cole family grave in Tower Hamlets cemetery alongside his mother, grandparents, great-aunts, and great-uncles – true Londoners who had worked, lived and died in the eastend of the 18th and 19th century.  Robert Andrew Cole, grocer and tea-dealer of Spitalfields Market, was buried in the same grave as his three children who hadn’t survived childhood.  Robert Cole, the only child of Robert Andrew and Sarah Elizabeth Cole who went on to marry and father his own children, married Louisa Parnall.  Louisa was a member of a fantastically successful Welsh family of industrialists and philanthropists who had a substantial Victorian clothes-making factory on Bishopsgate:  the Parnalls of Carmarthenshire and Bishopsgate.

As I said at the start of this post, it is not often a 21st century person can visit the home their Victorian ancestors within the East End of London.  However, not only can I visit my ancestors home, but I can also see them and almost feel and touch them.   Here are three members of the Cole family of Spitalfields Market in their Sunday-best finery, captured forever through the lens of the east-end photographer, Elias Gottheil, sometime in the mid 1860s.

Robert Andrew Cole, born 10 February 1819, Anthony Street, St George in the East, east London, baptised 7 March 1819 in the parish church of St George in the East.  Married 25 December 1850 St Thomas’ Church, Stepney to Sarah Elizabeth Ollenbuttel. Died March 1895 in Walthamstow. Buried in one of two Cole family graves in Tower Hamlets Cemetery. Grocer and tea-dealer of Spitalfields Market for over 30 years. Upper churchwarden of Christchurch Spitalfields c1870-74, member of several parish committees such as the committee founded by G. Fournier in the 1840s to carry out charity-work, and Governor and Director of the poor of the parish.

Robert Cole – eldest child of Robert Andrew and Sarah Elizabeth (nee Ollenbuttel) Cole, born 4 May 1852 in Tunbridge Wells (I have no idea why he was born here).  Married 11 January 1880 in St Thomas, Mile End Old Town to Louisa Parnall (great-niece of Robert and Henry Parnall of Bishopsgate).  Died 17 June 1927 in Raynes Park, South London.  Buried in Putney Vale Cemetery, London.  Grocer and teadealer.

Margaret Cole, baptised 28 March 1858 at Christchurch Spitalfields.  Buried 20 January 1869 in Tower Hamlets Cemetery aged 11 years.  The child in this photo looks to be about 7 or 8 years old, which dates all three photos to approximately the mid 1860s.

Robert Cole

Louisa Parnall

Robert Cole and Louisa Parnall.  Tintype photos possibly taken at their betrothal, before their January 1880 marriage.   It was Louisa Parnall’s sister, Alice Parnall, who along with her husband, James Nelson Kemp, left East London to live in Great Dunmow, first in the White Horse and then the Royal Oak.  And, whilst I was researching the  Parnall family and the Kemps of Great Dunmow in the Essex Record Office, I stumbled across the town’s Tudor churchwarden accounts and thus sparked the flame of my passion in discovering the lost voices of Tudor Great Dunmow.

If you are ever fortunate enough to be in the Spitalfields Market area of East London, take a stroll down Brushfield Street and look at the plaque there marking the parish boundary of Christchurch, Middlesex.  Then look into the windows of Whistles women’s clothes shop and imagine the Victorian tragedy and triumph that went on between those four walls and the drama of the daily family life of the grocer and tea-dealer, Robert Andrew and Sarah Elizabeth Cole.

(c) Essex Voices Past 2012

Parsonage Downs is an area in the north of the town of Great Dunmow.  As these pictures shows, it is one of the prettiest areas of Great Dunmow.

In medieval times, the area was dominated by the manor of Newton Hall (owned then by Mr Kynwelmarshe).  In more recent times, in the first part of the twentieth century, Newton Hall was owned by Julian Byng, 1st Viscount Byng of Vimy.  Lord Byng unveiled Great Dunmow’s War Memorial in July 1921.  Today, many younger Great Dunmowians will know this  area very well as the site of their school – the Helena Romanes Secondary School.

All photos below were taken on Good Friday 2012 by The Narrator. © Essex Voices Past.

Edwardian Parsonage Downs, Great Dunmow.  All postcards below are in the personal collection of The Narrator.  Newton Hall postcard was posted in 1905.  The second postcard below is a similar view to the second photo above.

Genealogist Thomas MacEntee of Geneabloggers runs a great website for genealogists. He suggests ‘Daily Blogging Prompts’ to help inspire bloggers to write genealogical posts.  In the spirit of one of his Prompts, Follow Friday, my post today contains my top 10 Essex related websites  for genealogical and local history research.

1. For archives, Essex Record Office’s online catalogue:  http://seax.essexcc.gov.uk/

2. Ancestor owned or ran a pub in Essex?  Try Pub History

Royal Oak pub in Great Dunmow. Left picture has the figure of the landlord, James Nelson Kemp (my grandfather’s uncle), and the right picture is of his son, Gordon Parnall Kemp (my grandfather’s cousin), killed in the Great War and commemorated on the town’s War Memorial along with his brother, Harold.

3. The history of various towns and villages in Essex:  http://www.historyhouse.co.uk/

4. The early-modern witches of Essex:  http://www.witchtrials.co.uk/ (This site also contains an essay by me which I wrote when I first started my research into witchcraft in early-modern Essex – see if you can spot it!)

5. Essex churches: http://www.essexchurches.info/

6. Roll of Honour for the war dead of Essex:  http://www.roll-of-honour.com/Essex//

7. Francis Firth for images of Essex past: http://www.francisfrith.com/essex/

8. For postcards of Essex towns and villages: http://www.ebay.co.uk

9. The Recorders of Uttlesford’s history: http://www.recordinguttlesfordhistory.org.uk/

10. Website with links to early-modern and modern Essex: Genmaps – Essex

And, of course, if your ancestor lived in early-modern Great Dunmow, then this website, Essex Voice Past!

Another one to add to my list!
Update 9 March 2012 at 19:30: I’ve realised I’ve made a glaring admission in my Top 10.  This one is definitely up there amongst my favourite sites.

Was you ancestor in a workhouse? This is an amazing site, be prepared to lose a few hours pouring over it!: http://www.workhouses.org.uk/

Have I missed any of your favourites? Let me know…

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You may also be interested in the following
– The craft of being a historian: Research Techniques
– The craft of being a historian: Analysing primary sources
– The craft of being a historian: Using maps for local history
– The craft of being a historian: Online resources

© Essex Voices Past 2012-2013.