Raise a glass to William and Albertina Haynes

Many thanks to those who joined us on Sunday for a guided walk in Radnor Street Cemetery - a couple of regular visitors and several new ones.

Here is the story of William and Albertina Haynes, one of the graves we visited. Swindon Heritage team member Noel Beauchamp was particularly interested in the Haynes memorial as he has some Haynes bottles and flagons in his Swindon Bottles collection.

This magnificent Celtic Cross shouts wealth and must have been a pretty expensive monument in its time.

The Celtic Cross design combines the ancient Celtic circle symbol with the Christian cross, and was usually a free standing stone monument. In Ireland examples have been found dating back to the 7^th century.

In the mid 19^th century we had a Celtic Revival when monuments like this became extremely popular and the Celtic Cross has since become associated with graveyard memorials. The letters IHS stand for the Greek spelling of Jesus Christ

This is the final resting place of William and Albertina Haynes. In their retirement the couple lived at Longford Villa one of those impressive Victorian properties on Bath Road. William died on September 17, 1922 and Albertina on January 30, 1931.

William had grown up in Fairford where his father worked as a confectioner. He moved to Purton to begin an apprenticeship in Edward Kempster’s grocer’s shop, which is how he met his future wife. Albertina was the daughter of Richard Newman who was a Beer House Keeper in Purton.

The couple married in the summer of 1879 and by the time of the 1881 census they were living at 5 Westcott Place where they ran a grocer’s shop. William employed two assistants including his younger brother Hubert.

By 1891 the establishment had grown somewhat. The couple had six children and employed three grocery assistants and two domestic servants.

Researching the census returns I think the Haynes grocers shop was in the large premises on the corner of Westcott Place and Read Street, which has various signs outside today advertising a Kick Boxing Gym and beds for sale. (Noel was able to confirm this was the site of the Haynes shop).

When William died in 1922 he left £65,473 9s 8d worth several million pounds today, an impressive amount of money for those post war times and more than enough to pay for this magnificent memorial.