Category Archives: Aviation

Major Bager’s Last Post

During the years immediately following World War One, the world very quickly became a smaller place. Developments were taking place almost on a daily basis in aviation. An international air mail service was becoming established and newsreels, introduced before the war, became a must-see bi-weekly feature of cinema-going. As a result of all of these, the events of 14 December 1920 and the name of a Heaton pilot were spoken about, not only across Britain, but around the world.

Growing Up

Robert Wilkinson was born on 27 June 1886 in Byker, the second son of Margaret Chambers, a single mother. Margaret went on to marry Lawrence Bager, a merchant seaman, and, by 1891, the family were living in Wallsend. Lawrence and Margaret had had a baby son together, while the older boys, Foster and Lawrence, were both recorded on the census under the surname ‘Wilkinson’ and as the stepsons of Lawrence, the head of household.

By 1901, the family were in Byker. Fourteen year old Robert was employed as a merchant’s clerk, as was his older brother, now listed as Fredrick. Both boys now had the surname ’Bager’ and were listed as sons of Lawrence, just like their younger siblings. Lawrence died in 1910 leaving Margaret at home, now 109 Tosson Terrace, Heaton, with her three grown up sons.

The older boys’ names had changed again by the time of the 1911 census to Robert William Moore-Wilkinson and Foster Moore-Wilkinson. Robert, now 25, was an engineer’s fitter at a firm of marine engineers. Apparently, prior to WW1, he made trips to Germany for Sopwith, a new company designing and building military aircraft and the ‘Bat Boat’, an early flying boat, which could operate on sea or land, one of which was bought by the German Navy Air Service.

War Hero

It’s no surprise, to find that, on the outbreak of war, Robert quickly joined the Royal Navy or that he was recruited to serve in the Royal Naval Air Service, the pioneering forerunner of the RAF. It is from Robert’s war records that we learn a little of what he looked like: 5 ft 91/2 inches tall, blue eyes and a complexion described as fresh. The photograph below is from the Royal Aero Club records.

Robert Bager’s Royal Aero Club Aviator Certificate

Robert was a member of No 7A Squadron (which, in 1917, became 14 Squadron) at first working as an aerial gun-layer. The squadron flew Handley Page Type 0 biplane bombers. In a report in the ‘Daily Mirror’ on 3 November 1917, headlined ‘Cavalry of the Clouds: honours for heroes who have been bombing foe docks’, Leading Mechanic R W Bager is listed as a recipient of a Distinguished Service Medal. We know too that he was wounded in engagements over Zeebrugge but was soon able to resume his duties. After the war, Robert joined the Handley Page Co, whose aircrafts he was so familiar with.

Airmail

Handley Page, founded in 1909, was Britain’s first publicly traded aircraft manufacturing company. During the war it built heavy bombers at its factory in Cricklewood. Having been narrowly beaten in June 1919 to the kudos of making the world’s first transatlantic flight by Alcock and Brown in a Vickers Vimy, on which there was a cargo of 196 letters and one letter packet with them, four months later Handley Page’s plane the ‘Atlantic’ won the consolation prize of carrying the first airmail from Canada to the USA.

The company had already launched a goods and passenger service between London and Paris and Brussels. The first Brussels service was advertised as three times weekly and the Paris service daily (except Sunday). A single ticket cost £15.15s and a ‘double journey’ £31.10 (No saving there then!) ‘Luncheon Baskets ‘ could be ordered in advance and passengers would be conveyed between the aerodrome and the respective cities by ‘landaulette cars’.

Just a month later on 11 November 1919, the first public overseas airmail service began, flying between London and Paris. This historic flight, captained by Lt Henry ‘Jerry’ Shaw, chief pilot of Aircraft Transport and Travel, flew the first commercial flight across the Channel, a de Havilland DH.9 biplane. The flight from Hendon to Paris-Le-Bourget took 2 hours and 30 minutes and cost £21 per passenger, the equivalent of more than £1,000 today. Pilots sat in unheated open cockpits before the age of reliable radio, often following landmarks such as railway lines to ensure they were on track.

The following year, Handley Page inaugurated its own air mail services to Paris, Brussels and Amsterdam. The Paris flight left daily at noon. The price was still £10 10s but there was now a discounted return fare available for £18 18s.

One of its pilots was Major Robert Bager of Tosson Terrace, Heaton.

Fateful Day

In mid-December 1920, England was experiencing severe weather. The headlines in the ‘Halifax Evening Chronicle’ on Tuesday 14th were typical: ‘Bolshevik weather: cold winds direct from Russia.’ ‘Iceland Warmer Than England’. The article went on to say that the Hebrides was the warmest part of Britain, while ten inches of snow was lying in Plymouth. The overnight temperature was ‘1 degree above zero’ FAHRENHEIT (-17 degrees Centigrade) in Peterborough. There were stories of happy polar bears in London Zoo and hardy swimmers in the Serpentine.

And below under the heading ‘Aeroplane Thrills’ was the story of the previous day’s Handley Page Transport flight from Paris. The pilot described his three hour flight across the Channel in a blizzard ‘Mine was the only machine to arrive in London today’ pilot Lt R H Macintosh is reported to have told the ‘Daily Mail.’ ‘The conditions were terrible, particularly on the English coast and the machine was covered with ice… when nearing London, I completely lost my bearings and flew about aimlessly until I succeeded in getting in touch with the aerodrome by wireless, which put me right and guided me home.’

As people read this in Yorkshire, other local papers from Portsmouth to Dundee were beginning to carry news of the crash of that day’s outward flight at Golders Green, very close to the Cricklewood aerodrome. In early editions there were just a couple of lines but, by late afternoon, news came through of fatalities.

By the following day, Handley Page Transport had issued a statement saying that an accident occurred to one of its 0/400 aeroplanes (G-EAMA HP-25) shortly after it left their aerodrome at 12.30pm for Paris.

It named the four victims: ‘Mr Salinger of London, an employee of a bristle merchant, passenger; Mr Van der Elst, of Paris, passenger; Mr Bager, pilot; Mr Williams, mechanic.’ Four other passengers survived: Mr Pierre Curioni of Lima, Peru and Mr E Rosenthal, a London shipbroker, were slightly injured; Mr Alexander Bona, an agent for Cinzano of Turin and Mr Eric Studd of Harley St, London, who was on his way to India via Paris, were unhurt. Mr Studd was said to have left for India by train later that afternoon.

The company pointed out that it was the first accident that had occurred in connection with its air services, which, it said, had been running since September 1919, during which time they had carried 4,000 passengers over a total distance of over 320,000 miles. The details of the passengers gives us some idea of the sort of people making international flights a century ago.

Some of the survivors were soon interviewed: Alexandre Bona, the Cinzano rep, who described himself as an ‘Italian balloon pilot’ is reported as saying:

‘It is only through our coolness that my friend, Curioni, and I survived.’ He said they broke windows and were able to jump out. ‘They’re easy to break these mica windows’. He said that those who died were seated in the front section of the plane.

There were eye witness accounts too: ‘Nursemaids, postmen, milkmen and policemen [were among the first to] rush to the scene’ . ’Many of them said that the ‘machine’ appeared to be in difficulty immediately after take off, swerved but hit a tree and then an outhouse in the garden of no 6 Basing Hill ‘the eight-roomed residence of Miss E Robinson’. The fire service responded to a telephone call from Miss Robinson, who said she was in her front room when she heard the noise, but by the time they arrived, there was only ‘the skeleton of the plane’ left. As time went on, the accounts became ever more graphic. One witness said he saw one person jump clear and make an attempt to help others. Others said they could hear the harrowing shouts of those inside.

By the end of the day, it had emerged that the pilot was from Newcastle. The local press had printed his address and interviewed his mother, said to be ‘overcome by the news’ but who proudly told journalists of her son’s many achievements and his award for gallantry.

And within a few days, cinema-goers in Heaton and elsewhere were able to see the scene of the crash for themselves in a British Pathe newsreel which survives. You can clearly see the snow falling.

Interest in the accident was unsurprising. Flying was in its infancy and fascinated the public. Landmark achievements seemed to occur almost daily but setbacks too were big news – and there were plenty of them: The previous year, Winston Churchill, the UK’s first Secretary of State for Air, having resumed flying lessons which had been interrupted by the war, had suffered severe bruising after crashing his plane, severely injuring his instructor; in the USA, airmail pilots had gone on strike after being forced to fly even in zero visibility, a policy which resulted in 15 crashes in a fortnight with two fatalities; a year ago almost to the day, Sir John Alcock of Manchester, the first person to pilot a flight across the Atlantic, had died after crashing in fog near Rouen on route to an air show; and just a few months before, actor and stuntman, Ormer Locklear and his flying partner were killed while filming a night time spin for a feature film ‘The Skywayman’ before a large crowd in Los Angeles.

But the accident on 14 December was the first ever fatal, commercial air crash on British soil and is widely considered only the third in the world. The first, in July 1919, was the crash of the Wingfoot Air Express, an airship, into the Illinois Trust and Savings Building in Chicago, killing one crew member, two passengers and ten bank employees. The second, and the first involving a heavier than air plane, occurred near Verona in Italy, in August 1919. Tullo Morgagni, the founder of many still important cycle races, including the Giro d’Italia, was among the 14-17 (reports vary) victims.

Inquest

The inquest heard that Major Bager was a very experienced pilot and that the machine had always functioned well. It had been examined before take-off by two ground engineers and, according to a Major Brockley, who said he had helped start the engine before the flight, it was ‘quite satisfactory’. The verdict was that the four victims died from the consequences of burns due to the crashing of an aeroplane to the ground after it had struck a tree and that there was not sufficient evidence as to how it crashed to the ground.

There appears to have been no allusion to the weather, the previous day’s dramatic flight, the design of the aircraft, communications with the ground or the commercial pressure to fly.

Funeral

Major Bager’s funeral was held on 20 December. The cortege left his family home in Tosson Terrace, accompanied by the chief mourners, his mother, brothers and sister, fiancé Ethel Gibbett of Cricklewood and representatives of Handley-Page and the Amalgamated Engineering Union, as well as many old friends and ‘sympathetic spectators.’ Reverend R Trotter, Vicar of St Gabriel’s, conducted the funeral at Heaton Cemetery where Major Robert William Bager rests still.

Acknowledgments

Researched and written by Chris Jackson, Heaton History Group.

Sources

Airline Timetable Images www.timetableimages.com from the collection of Björn Larsson

Ancestry

British Newspaper Archive

Arthur Edward George: aviation pioneer

2 Replies

Heaton, we know, was home to a number of clever, adventurous and brave young men who learnt to fly in the early days of aviation, mostly as a result of the first world war: William Douglass Horsley, who was to become chief electrical engineer at Parsons, was a founder member of the RAF, after being transferred from its predecessor, the Royal Flying Corps; Gladstone Adams, later to invent the windscreen wiper, was a reconnaissance photographer with the Royal Flying Corps – to him fell the task of photographing the body of Baron von Richthofen ‘The Red Baron’ to prove to the authorities back home that he was really dead; gifted young civil engineer, Henry Clifford Stroud, trying to intercept a German bomber at night in a an era before radar and radio, was killed in a collision with another British plane. And there were more. But noteworthy as their achievements were, only one man, a genuine pioneer, is remembered still for his contribution to aviation. That honour goes to Arthur Edward George, once of Jesmond Park West in Heaton.

Sportsman

Arthur was born in Fordington, Dorset on 17 June 1875. By the time he was five, his family had moved to Newcastle and were living in the west end. His father was a ‘house estate and insurance agent’. By the time of the 1891 census, Arthur, now 15, was serving his time as a mechanical engineering apprentice. Young Arthur was a talented sportsman. Local newspapers give testament to his cycling prowess. He was also a keen swimmer and predicted by some to be a future Olympian.

After qualifying as a mechanical engineer, Arthur went to South Africa, serving in the 2^nd Boer War with the Cape Colony Cyclist Corps and also competing in cycling events there. He received the Queens South Africa Medal with three clasps.

In 1902, having returned to Newcastle, Arthur first became connected with Heaton. He and business partner, 30 year old Robert Lee Jobling, ‘a mechanical engineer, motors and cycles’ (according to the census), who lived at 48 Sixth Avenue, founded George and Jobling. Their firm operated from the old Stephenson Locomotive Works in South Street, Newcastle for over 60 years.

They began by building bikes but soon began to concentrate on the motor trade – both repairs and sales. George and Jobling was a dealership for evocative names such as Argyll, Humber, Vauxhall, Wolseley, Darracq and Dodge. The partnership is credited with inventing the forerunner of the trolley-jack and the breakdown truck. Remember, this was at a time when all cars were hand-built, when both steam and electricity seemed viable candidates for powering them and two years before the historic meeting in Manchester between Charles Rolls and Henry Royce. The first all-British four-wheel car was built by Herbert Austin, manager of the Wolseley Sheep Shearing Machine Company in 1900. By 1904, there were about 23,000 cars on Britain’s roads, compared with around 38,300,000 now.

Four years later, the Model T Ford became the world’s first mass-produced (and so affordable) car and, by 1910, car ownership in Britain had quadrupled. Arthur George and Robert Jobling were obviously good at what they did, innovative, prepared to take risks and with an eye for future trends. They soon had outlets as far afield as Glasgow, Leeds, Darlington, Hexham, Alnwick and Bowness on Windermere.

Arthur also raced cars and finished third in the 1908 RAC Tourist Trophy on the Isle of Man. He competed on the track at Brooklands in Surrey, winning the All-Ford race with Henry Ford watching from the stands, as well as on Saltburn Sands.

The Model T Ford he drove, with his own bespoke brass bodywork, was known as ‘The Golden Ford’. It survives and belongs to Tuckett’s of Buckinghamshire. It was the subject of Channel 4’s ‘The Salvage Squad’ in 2004. You might even have seen it: in 2017, it was brought back to Newcastle for the re-opening of the Stephenson Works as a music venue called ‘The Boiler Shop’.

Aviation

Arthur became interested in flying after attending the world’s first international public flying event, la Grande Semaine d’Aviation de la Champagne, an eight day show held in Reims, France in August 1909. It was this historic meeting which confirmed the viability of heavier-than-air flight. Half a million people, including the French President, Armand Falliere, and future British Prime Minister, David Lloyd George, attended and almost all the prominent aviators of the time took part. Henri Farman, a Franco-British aviator, broke the world record for distance with a flight of 180 kilometres. On the final day, during a competition for the fastest flight, Louis Bleriot’s plane crashed and was destroyed in the resulting fire.

Nevertheless Arthur was inspired and he returned to Newcastle to design and build his own bi-plane at the South Street works. Just six months later, in March 1910, the plane was shown at George and Jobling stand at the London Olympia Aero and Motor Boat Exhibition.

It featured a unique ‘triplicate control column’ to simplify the handling of the aircraft and which many aviation experts consider to be the first ever joy stick. This remarkable piece of equipment can still be seen at Newcastle’s Discovery Museum.

On 6 September 1910, Arthur George became the 19th person to obtain his Royal Aero Club Pilot’s Licence in a plane, ‘Bird of Passage’ that he bought from JTC Moore-Brabazon, the very first person to obtain the licence just six months earlier.

Sadly, before the year had ended, Arthur had crashed the George and Jobling plane at Northumberland Golf Club in Gosforth Park and no bank would lend him money to enable the prototype to go into production, believing it to be too risky a venture.

In WWI, Arthur served in the Northumberland Motor Volunteer Corps as a temporary Major. He hadn’t given up flying, however, and in 1925 became a founding member of Newcastle Aero Club and became a member of its executive council. Older Heatonians might recognise another well known local name, that of Doctor Eric Dagger, who practised in Heaton, as did his son.

Newcastle Aero Club executive council, including Arthur George

By 1929, Arthur and his second wife, Monica, were living at ‘The Haven’, 93 Jesmond Park West, High Heaton.

‘The Haven’ Jesmond Park West, Arthur George’s High Heaton home

In the second world war, he served first of all as Honorary Chief Wing Commander of 131 Tyneside Squadron Air Defence Cadet Corps and then in the Home Guard.

(Incidentally, Arthur’s son, Lieutenant A E George Jnr of the Australian Army was awarded the Military Cross for special work behind Japanese lines. He attended both the RGS in Newcastle and Durham School as well as playing rugby for Gosforth Nomads.)

In 1951, just three months after he flew an aircraft for the last time on his 75^th birthday, Arthur Edward George died while visiting his daughter in Bingley, Yorkshire. His funeral, back in Newcastle, was attended not only by friends and family but also by business partner, Heaton’s Robert Jobling, and by officials and members of Newcastle Aero Club. There was a fly past by two Tiger Moths, which dipped their wings out of respect.

A posthumous award of the Royal Aero Club’s silver medal for ‘services to aviation for over 50 years’ followed.

Acknowledgements

Researched and written by Arthur Andrews, with additional material by Chris Jackson, both of Heaton History Group. Copyright: Arthur Andrews and Heaton History Group.

Sources

Ancestry

British Newspaper Archive

https://www.chroniclelive.co.uk/news/history/over-100-years-after-built-12160961

Findmypast Graces Guide

’70 Years of Flying 1923-1995’ – by John Sleight

Wikipedia

Can you help?

If you know more about Arthur Edward George, Robert Lee Jobling or anyone mentioned in the article or have photographs to share, we’d love to hear from you. You can contact us either through this website by clicking on the link immediately below the article title or by emailing chris.jackson@heatonhistorygroup.org

The Stroud Family of Cresta

5 Replies

274 Heaton Road is one of Heaton’s more substantial Victorian villas, also known as Cresta. The first recorded conveyance of the house is 1902 and it seems likely that the first residents were the Stroud family, Professor Dr Henry Stroud, his wife Eva Mary Antoinette Stroud and their three children, Irene Elizabeth, Bessie Vera and Henry Clifford. All fairly unremarkable, except that in one house we have a man who was professor of physics at the age of 26 and a close research collaborator and personal friend of Lord Armstrong; a world war one war hero and early aviator; a Red Cross volunteer in WW1 and a possible member of the peerage.

Henry Stroud was born in Bristol in 1862, the second of three children to John and Mary Stroud. John was a pharmaceutical chemist and as well as his family had two apprentices and a servant living in his home.

On leaving school, Henry had a brilliant academic career at both the University of London, where he gained first class degrees in both Physics and Chemistry and later a Doctorate, and at Cambridge, taking a first class degree in the second part of the Natural Science Tripos.

Henry became a lecturer in physics at Armstrong College, then part of the University of Durham in 1886. In 1887, he married Eva Marie Antoinette Emmett, also from Bristol.

Also in 1887, Henry became Professor of Physics and head of the department, at the ripe old age of 26. The 1891 census shows the family, Henry and Eva, with two daughters, Irene aged two and Bessie, six months, living at 8 Grosvenor Place Jesmond, supported by two servants. By 1911, they were living on Heaton Road, with their three children Irene, 22, Bessie, 20 and Henry Clifford, 17, again with two servants.

Either a Physics Professor earned a great deal more in 1911 than they do today, or one of the families had considerable wealth, as they certainly lived a comfortable lifestyle. There is no doubt that Henry was a great success in his position, growing the department from one professor, one lecturer and 76 students in 1887 to two professors, four lecturers, two demonstrators and 244 students when he retired in 1926.

What perhaps better explains the family’s wealth is Henry’s research interest. Throughout his career, Henry collaborated with Lord Armstrong on research into the nature of electricity. Lord Armstrong conducted early experiments on electrical discharges, which Henry worked with him on. A room, the Electrical Room, was specifically set aside at Cragside, Lord Armstrong’s country home, for their research work. Next door to the Billiard Room, the National Trust has recently opened this room to the public to celebrate their research. At Lord Armstrong’s request, Henry completed this research, which was published in 1899 as a ‘Supplement to Electrical Movement in Air and Water with Theoretical Inferences’ by Lord Armstrong CB, FRS. Essentially, the research led Armstrong to propose the existence of two ‘electric fluids’ in air and water, what we now understand as positively and negatively charged particles.

The photographs of their research showing the effect of negatively and positively charged particles are quite exquisite.

Illustration of Lord Armstrong and Professor Stroud’s research on electrical discharges

A number of these are available on the Royal Society website. It seems likely that this research and Henry’s academic prowess made him a wealthy and famous man at a time when society revered knowledge. Certainly when he died in 1940, his estate was valued at £23,136/16/5, about £1.4m in today’s money.

Henry Clifford

The youngest of Henry and Eva’s children, Henry Clifford Stroud was born on 25 July 1893. He certainly followed in his father’s footsteps in terms of academic ability, although his passion was for engineering. He was educated at the Royal Grammar School, then gained his BSc in Engineering at Armstrong College in 1913, followed by a BA at King’s College Cambridge. He was a student of the Institution of Civil Engineers and a graduate of the North East Coast Institution of Engineers and Shipbuilders where, despite his young age, he read a number of papers and was awarded prizes. He was gaining practical experience at Sir William Arrol’s in Glasgow during vacations and had plans to become a civil engineer.

At University, Henry Clifford joined the Officer Training Corps, then the Territorial Force and in June 1912, at the age of 18, was gazetted a Second Lieutenant in the Northumbrian Royal Engineers then promoted to Lieutenant two years later.

Henry Clifford Stroud (Imperial War Museum)

When war broke out Henry immediately volunteered for service overseas and embarked for France with the Northumbrian Royal Engineers, First Field Company in January 1915. His career was tragically short-lived as on 8^th February he was severely injured in both legs and after immediate treatment in Versailles, he found himself back at Armstrong College, now converted into the No1 Northern General Military Hospital, where he had a long slow recovery.

Sadly his injuries made a return to front line service impossible, so he was posted to Otley as an Instructor in Field Engineering and Bombing, becoming a Captain in June 1916. However, this didn’t satisfy Henry and in July he was passed by the Medical Board to join the Royal Flying Corps, qualifying as a pilot on 22^nd August 1916.

In September he was posted to 61^st Squadron at Rochford Aerodrome in Essex (now Southend airport), engaged in the defence of London from air raids, often under the cover of darkness.

At around 11.30 on the night of 7 March 1918, Henry took off in a Se5a bi-plane to intercept a German plane. It was a moonless night, one of only two occasions when the Germans launched attacks on such nights during the war and there was obviously no radar or radio.

Plane like that piloted by Henry Clifford Stroud

At about the same time, Captain Alexander Bruce Kynoch of 37 Squadron took off from Stow Maries to intercept the same raider. With no means of communication and next to no light, the two aircraft collided in mid air over Dollyman’s farm in Essex at around midnight, killing both pilots. Henry Clifford was buried at St Andrew’s Church, Rochford and a permanent memorial of the accident was placed at the spot where the two planes crashed. The memorial is still there and consists of an aeroplane propeller.

Memorial to Henry Clifford Stroud

Professor Stroud endowed a physics prize in his son’s honour at the University. Newspapers show that the Henry Clifford Stroud Prize for Physics was still being awarded well into the 1940s.

Eva

Henry’s wife had been born Eva Mary Antoinette Emmett in 1862. Like her husband, she was born in Bristol, the eldest daughter and one of six children of Clifford and Laura Emmett. Her father, Clifford, started as an accountant, in 1881 was clerk to an iron merchant and subsequently took over the business.

Eva was well educated. In 1881, aged 19, she was recorded as a ‘scholar’ (and her name is given as Mary E), signs of an independent spirit or just a slip of the pen? Later documents refer to her as Eva Mary once more.

We don’t know much about Eva’s early adulthood other than that she married Henry in 1887 and had three children. But we do know that, soon after Henry Clifford’s death during WW1, she volunteered her services to the Red Cross and Victoria League, following in the footsteps of her daughter, Irene. Records show that they both worked in the ‘moss room‘. During the first world war, sphagnum moss was collected from peat bogs in industrial quantities, as it had mildly antiseptic properties. The moss was transported to depots where it was dried and made into dressings for use in military hospitals.

When Eva died on 3 March 1928, Henry endowed another prize in her memory, the Eva Marie Antoinette Stroud Prize for Physics.

Irene and Bessie

It’s relatively unusual to be able to track down what became of the daughters of a family, particularly post the 1911 census. However in the case of the Stroud family, the probate for Henry Stroud following his death in 1940 shows that his estate was to be divided between William Robert Gerald Wthiting and Ralph Oakley Whiting. Further research uncovered that Irene married William in the spring of 1911 and Bessie married his younger brother Ralph in September 1918.

The Whitings were the two sons of William and Marion Whiting. William was the Chief Constructor for the Admiralty. In other words, he was the person overall responsible for the construction of the naval fleet, which clearly influenced the careers of both sons.

William was born on 15^th May 1884 and in 1911 was a Naval Architect, boarding at 2 Larkspur Street Jesmond. After marrying Irene, the couple lived at Perivale, Nun’s Moor Crescent. On 26 January 1923 he joined the Institute of Civil Engineers, where the records show that he had an MBE as well as BA. At that time he was working as Personal assistant to the General Manager at Armstrong Naval Yard. He died at the age of 63 on 5^th September 1947 in Middlesex Hospital London.

Ralph was born on 16^th January 1893, graduating Cambridge Trinity with a BA in Mechanical Sciences in 1914, acquiring an MA in 1918. He immediately joined the Royal Navy, becoming an Instructor Lieutenant in 1921 and Commander (the rank below Captain) in 1949. He was clearly stationed abroad for some of his career as immigration records show Bessie travelling alone to and from Malta, Singapore and Gibraltar in the 1930s, no doubt to be with her husband on his overseas postings.

The couple had at least one son, Anthony Gerald Stroud Whiting, born in 1926 and died in 2008 and he had a daughter Anita Julia Whiting.

What is intriguing about Ralph, Bessie and the family is that they are listed on a website called the Peerage, a genealogical survey of the peerage of Britain. So far I have been unable to determine why exactly. I have however discovered that Anita married the Very Rev. Hon. Dr Richard Crosbie Aitken Henderson, son of Peter Gordon Henderson, Baron Henderson of Brompton in 1985. So at the very least, Bessie and Ralph’s granddaughter is married to the son of a Baron, but there may be more to it. Watch this space.

Acknowledgements

This article was researched and written by Michael Proctor, Heaton History Group. Thank you to Terry Joyce, who sent a photograph of Henry Clifford Stroud’s grave (reproduced below) and corrected a couple of errors in the article.

Can you help?

Terry Joyce is part of a group which is trying to restore the memorials to Captains Henry Clifford Stroud and Alexander Bruce Kynoch but which first needs to find out who owns them as the landowner denies that he does.

If you can help with this or know anything else about any of the people mentioned in this article, please get in touch either by clicking on the link immediately below the title of this article or by emailing chris.jackson@heatonhistorygroup.org

We are always interested to receive information, memories and photos relevant to the history of Heaton.