Who links Woodchester with Time Team?
While watching Time Team on Sunday 11 November something stirred in the depths of my memory. The dig in question was at Belton Park where the Machine Gun Corps trained for World War 1. Among the names on our war memorial is that of Walter Alfred Cox of whom very little is known within the village as he appears to have no local connections. He was born in India c 1876, the son of the Rev. John Cox and his second wife Anna Amy (or Amry), an Ezhava woman. This marriage had caused John Cox to leave the London Missionary Society, with whom he had gone to India over 20 years earlier. He then took up coffee planting in South Travancore. This changed to tea planting, around the early 1880s when blight affected the coffee.
Walter enlisted in the Kings Royal Rifles on 6 December 1915, giving his address as c/o A J Morton Ball, The Green, Stroud. He describes himself as a 39 year old, unmarried, Tea Planter. He was 5 feet 7 inches tall and had a couple of scars and a mole. His service record also tells us he was a ‘man of colour’. He gives his next of kin as Anna Amy Cox of Oliver’s Estate, Tittivila, South Travancore.
Walter was transferred to the Machine Gun Corps, Grantham on the 6 March 1916 and a few days later promoted to acting Lance Corporal. According to Time Team, the training at Belton Park lasted six weeks but Walter will only have completed about half of this. On 30 March, he was admitted to The Military Hospital, Belton Park suffering from malaria, presumably contracted in India rather than Lincolnshire. On 10 April, he was unable to give his relations’ address and the Machine Gun Corps were requesting help from the Kings Royal Rifles to send a telegram to his next of kin. He died on 12 April 1916 in the military hospital without firing a shot in anger. His remains were buried in Woodchester churchyard on 16 April.
The stone erected by the War Graves Commission in 2005, because the private memorial no longer adequately remembered him, stands at the foot of a plot. The private memorial at the head of the plot commemorates Charlotte Elizabeth Cox, eldest daughter of John and Charlotte Elizabeth Cox of Oliver’s Painswick. She was Walter’s aunt and was buried exactly 18 years before him. She lived at Elmsleigh. This inscription is becoming difficult to read and the reverse is even worse, requiring excellent light to make out the reference to Walter Alfred Cox.
The only other link I can find between Walter and Woodchester is his cousin Bertha Chance Cassels who lived in Atcombe Road c 1908.
As for A J Morton Ball, his link to the Cox family is more convoluted. On 5 March 1881, he married Jeannette Cox (nee Richardson) at Ross in Herefordshire. I believe she was the widow of Walter’s half brother, John Harcombe Cox.
I don’t know why Walter is in Woodchester churchyard and on the Woodchester Memorial. I suspect that the churchyard led to the memorial but why was his burial not at Painswick where there is a family plot? If anyone knows the reason, please tell.
I am grateful to Alan Fielder who came across the article by accident and has sent me some further information on the Cox family. It appears that Charlotte Elizabeth Cox (Aunt Lottie) who lived at Elmsleigh, provided a home for her nephews and nieces when they were at school in England. After her death, Bertha Chance Cassels (Aunt Bee) who lived at Inchdene in Atcombe Road, continued to provide the same service. A J Morton Ball, W A Cox's representative in the area would have been aware of this and so Woodchester, which may have been where this unfortunate man spent his school holidays became the chosen spot for his burial.
While watching Time Team on Sunday 11 November something stirred in the depths of my memory. The dig in question was at Belton Park where the Machine Gun Corps trained for World War 1. Among the names on our war memorial is that of Walter Alfred Cox of whom very little is known within the village as he appears to have no local connections. He was born in India c 1876, the son of the Rev. John Cox and his second wife Anna Amy (or Amry), an Ezhava woman. This marriage had caused John Cox to leave the London Missionary Society, with whom he had gone to India over 20 years earlier. He then took up coffee planting in South Travancore. This changed to tea planting, around the early 1880s when blight affected the coffee.
Walter enlisted in the Kings Royal Rifles on 6 December 1915, giving his address as c/o A J Morton Ball, The Green, Stroud. He describes himself as a 39 year old, unmarried, Tea Planter. He was 5 feet 7 inches tall and had a couple of scars and a mole. His service record also tells us he was a ‘man of colour’. He gives his next of kin as Anna Amy Cox of Oliver’s Estate, Tittivila, South Travancore.
Walter was transferred to the Machine Gun Corps, Grantham on the 6 March 1916 and a few days later promoted to acting Lance Corporal. According to Time Team, the training at Belton Park lasted six weeks but Walter will only have completed about half of this. On 30 March, he was admitted to The Military Hospital, Belton Park suffering from malaria, presumably contracted in India rather than Lincolnshire. On 10 April, he was unable to give his relations’ address and the Machine Gun Corps were requesting help from the Kings Royal Rifles to send a telegram to his next of kin. He died on 12 April 1916 in the military hospital without firing a shot in anger. His remains were buried in Woodchester churchyard on 16 April.
The stone erected by the War Graves Commission in 2005, because the private memorial no longer adequately remembered him, stands at the foot of a plot. The private memorial at the head of the plot commemorates Charlotte Elizabeth Cox, eldest daughter of John and Charlotte Elizabeth Cox of Oliver’s Painswick. She was Walter’s aunt and was buried exactly 18 years before him. She lived at Elmsleigh. This inscription is becoming difficult to read and the reverse is even worse, requiring excellent light to make out the reference to Walter Alfred Cox.
The only other link I can find between Walter and Woodchester is his cousin Bertha Chance Cassels who lived in Atcombe Road c 1908.
As for A J Morton Ball, his link to the Cox family is more convoluted. On 5 March 1881, he married Jeannette Cox (nee Richardson) at Ross in Herefordshire. I believe she was the widow of Walter’s half brother, John Harcombe Cox.
I don’t know why Walter is in Woodchester churchyard and on the Woodchester Memorial. I suspect that the churchyard led to the memorial but why was his burial not at Painswick where there is a family plot? If anyone knows the reason, please tell.
I am grateful to Alan Fielder who came across the article by accident and has sent me some further information on the Cox family. It appears that Charlotte Elizabeth Cox (Aunt Lottie) who lived at Elmsleigh, provided a home for her nephews and nieces when they were at school in England. After her death, Bertha Chance Cassels (Aunt Bee) who lived at Inchdene in Atcombe Road, continued to provide the same service. A J Morton Ball, W A Cox's representative in the area would have been aware of this and so Woodchester, which may have been where this unfortunate man spent his school holidays became the chosen spot for his burial.