Fragrant Memories

What a beautiful inscription on a recently discovered headstone in Radnor Street Cemetery.

Margaret Ridley Farr was born on February 28, 1902 in Swindon, the only child of Frank George Farr, a coach body maker in the GWR Works, and his wife Elizabeth.

Margaret was baptised at St Mark’s Church on March 31, 1902 when the family lived at 8 Westcott Place and by the time of the 1911 census the Farr family were living at 51 Exeter Street, one of the company-built houses in the Railway Village, with Elizabeth’s brother and his little daughter.

In 1916 the UK Railway Employment Records reveal that 14-year-old Margaret was working as a temporary clerk in the Loco Department, possibly employed due to staff shortages during the First World War. She left on August 2, 1919 again, possibly as military personnel began to return after the end of the war and reclaimed their jobs. But by March of the following year she was once more employed as a clerk in the Loco Department where she remained for five years.

In 1927 Margaret married William Alfred Preston, who worked as a coach body builder in the Carriage and Wagon Works. The couple do not appear to have had children and in 1939 they were living at 31 Westmorland Road, a leafy road just off the town centre with Queens Park at one end and Groundwell Road at the other.

Then just when I thought I had it all nicely sorted out, Margaret’s grave presented a bit of a mystery. The cemetery burial registers reveal that Margaret died in the Victoria Hospital and that her funeral took place on November 17, when she was buried in plot C293. According to the registers this is a public plot and Margaret is buried with four other unrelated people. It is very unusual for a headstone to be erected on a public grave and not something that routinely happens in Radnor Street Cemetery. 

And then I noticed that next door, in plot C292, lay the Preston family. The first burial in this plot took place in 1896 and was that of Ina Preston, the first wife of Alfred Ernest Preston (William Alfred’s father). His second wife (William Alfred’s mother) Maud Ellen Veal was buried in 1937 and Alfred Ernest himself in 1952. The last burial to take place was that of Irene Helen Preston (William Alfred’s sister) in 1962.

Could William have erected the stylish headstone on his parents’ grave? Now it looks as if I have to survey the grave site again to see what I might have missed when this sentimental inscription caught my eye.

William died in 1969 and does not appear to be buried in the cemetery.