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War Memorial No. 40330

 

THESE ROSE GARDENS/ WERE PLANTED AS A MEMORIAL/ TO THE MEN OF FARRINGDON/ WHO GAVE THEIR LIVES IN DEFENCE/ OF FREEDOM IN WORLD WAR II/ 1939 - 1945/ "LEST WE FORGET"

 

ANDREWS Norman Dennis PRIVATE 14720841 3RD BN THE MONMOUTH REGIMENT, born 13th February 1926 killed 30th November 1944 at Broekhuizen Holland aged 18 years (Buried at the Canadian Cemetery Grossbeek). Dennis was the 3rd child of Charles ANDREWS and Elizabeth LANEY. His siblings included: Elizabeth J (1920, married 1st Nelson HAYWOOD killed at Caen 1944, 2nd Alfred WITHERS), Winifred Joan (1921, married Cyril SAVOURY), Kenneth (1929-2001, married 1st Margaret HEALY, 2nd Mavis CHARLTON – Ken ran the Rose & Crown for many years. He was a Parish Councillor) and Ronald. The family lived at The Chase, Lower Farringdon. Dennis was called up in March 1944 soon after his 18th birthday. He joined the Royal Sussex Regiment at Colchester and was posted to a holding unit in France, before being sent to the Monmouths.

 

GUNDRY Henry James (Jim) PRIVATE 3RD BN THE MONMOUTHSHIRE REGIMENT born 28th October 1924 killed 28th September 1944 aged 19 years at Oplpp Village and buried at Overloom Military Cemetery Holland. Jim was brought up with his brother Bill by William Henry STRONG and his wife Rose KNIGHT in Farringdon, they had no children of their own. Rose lived at 10, Parsonage Close, Upper Farringdon. Jim completed his basic training with the Bedfordshire/Hertfordshire Regiment, but subsequently was transferred to the Monmouthshire Regiment where he met up with Dennis ANDREWS of Farringdon. Jim died when the billet in which he was resting was hit by a shell. Bill and Jim’s parents are believed to have been William GUNDRY and Ethel F DURRANT (their mother’s maiden name was DURRANT), who married in 1918. Siblings included: Ethel F (1918).

 

JOHNSON George PRIVATE 5500933 ¼ BN. THE HAMPSHIRE REGIMENT born 23rd March 1913 died 29th November 1941 aged 28 years (WAR GRAVE HEADSTONE) George was the youngest son of Arthur George JOHNSON and Fanny BEAGLEY of The Chase, Lower Farringdon. He enlisted in the TA at The Hampshire Regiment Drill Hall at Alton on the 8th May 1939. At the time he was employed as a lorry driver at Alyward’s Mill in Lower Farringdon. George was killed in Kent in a motor-cycling accident whilst serving as an Army dispatch rider.

 

And his brother-in-law….

 

ROSE William George (Bill) GUNNER 1736519 ROYAL ARTILLERY 7/14TH MARITIME ANTI-AIRCRAFT REGT. Bill perished in action at sea 11th July 1942 aged 31 years aboard SS Port Hunter near Freetown Sierra Leone. He is commemorated on the Plymouth Naval Memorial. Bill (son of Thomas and Lydia Helen ROSE) worked as a gardener for Sir George Touche at Broomfield. On the 1st April 1933 at 7.15am when he entered his employers’ kitchen he met for the first time Florence Annie (daughter of Arthur George JOHNSON and Fanny BEAGLEY of The Chase, Lower Farringdon) who was starting her first day’s work. When he returned home for breakfast at 8 o’clock he told his mother ‘I saw the girl I’m going to marry this morning mum’. They married 3 years later. Before joining up for the war in the Royal Artillery Bill worked for Mr Wilson at Woodside Farringdon and they lived at Park Cottages Farringdon. Florence remarried to John MARLOW.

 

LYWOOD Ian Conway Gifford LIEUTENANT 6TH BATTALION ROYAL NORFOLK REGIMENT born 10th September 1899 in Blantyre Scotland killed 14th-15th February 1942 aged 42 years. Ian was killed at the fall of Singapore when the Japanese troops overran Alexandra Hospital to which he had been evacuated with malaria on the 22nd January. He is buried in Krangi Imperial War Cemetery. Ian was the son of Lieut. Col Edwin Gifford LYWOOD Royal Marines and Ethel May WELLS of The Malt House, Lower Farringdon. He was educated at Stubbington House Prep School (with his brother Kenneth) and Brighton College, where he was head boy in 1917. He was a keen sportsman enjoying; hockey, soccer, sailing (he sailed on Commander Charles LAPAGE’S boat ‘Tung Hsing’ – lived at Ivy Farm, Farringdon - there is a memorial to him in All Saints Church), shooting, polo, point-to-point and hunting. He attended the Royal Military College at Sandhurst and was commissioned on the 21st August 1922 joining the Royal Norfolk Regiment. Ian married Jessie Watson (1901-91, daughter of Robert Dennison MARTIN) in Jamaica 1924/25. During WW2 Jessie and their children Kenneth and Patricia (died 1974) lived for a time at Cruck Cottage, Upper Farringdon before moving to Rose Cottage Chawton. Jessie remarried in 1957 to Francis R MARSHALL.

 

MERRETT John Phillips LIEUTENANT 279652 2/4TH BN THE HAMPSHIRE REGIMENT born 16th May 1917 killed 21st July 1944 aged 27 years north of Arrezo Italy (buried in Arrezo Cemetery). John’s father Edgar Fenn MERRETT went to Canada to work on the railway being built through the Rockies. He stayed on obtaining a free grant of land on the prairie near Halkirk Alberta. There he built a shack and Lily & Edgar had three children: Harold, Dorothy and John. The family returned to Dulwich in 1921 and shortly afterwards purchased Cramps, a 30-acre smallholding in Upper Farringdon. John went to Farringdon Elementary School and later Normandy Street School. John was a keen sportsman enjoying cricket, football and swimming. His first job was in the office at Crowley Brewery in Alton. In 1938 John enrolled in the Territorial Army. After the outbreak of WW2 he was drafted to the 2/4th Battalion the Hampshire Regiment serving first at Hitchin and then Manston Kent before the battalion was sent to North Africa in January 1943. He was described as ‘a helluva nice bloke …. dependable, popular and with a ready smile’. He quickly earned promotion to Orderly Room Sergeant and subsequently the Company Sergeant Major of A Company. At the end of the campaign in Sicily he had the distinction of being ‘commissioned in the field’ and remained a platoon commander in A Company during the campaign in Italy until he was killed.

 

PINK Wilfred Charles PRIVATE 5500695 2ND BN THE WORCESTERSHIRE REGIMENT born 1921 died 9th February 1945 in Burma aged 24 years, buried at Taukkyan Cemetery Rangoon. Wilfred was the only son of Wilfred James PINK and Constance Laura Adelaide MUNDAY who were married in 1914. They lived at 2 Railway Cottages, Lower Farringdon; Wilfred’s father was a ganger looking after a section of the railway line which ran through Farringdon. Wilfred Charles attended Farringdon Elementary School and then Normandy Street School. He was good at cricket, enjoyed shooting and was a member of the Scouts. Wilfred was particularly interested in farming and joined the Young Farmers Association. As a boy he kept calves behind his grandparents’ house, Wilverlyn (Brightstone Lane opposite Railway Cottages). He got a job at Aylward’s Corn Mill in Farringdon. His parents acquired land for him so that he could become a poultry farmer, but it was taken over by the War Department for use as a searchlight station. He was wounded in action and died as a result.

 

RUSTELL Stanley MARINE PO/X 2727, THE ROYAL MARINES born 13th January 1919 perished 14th October 1939 aged 20 years aboard HMS Royal Oak at Scapa Flow in the Orkney Islands.  Stanley was the 2nd son of Charles RUSTELL and Amy RATLIFFE of 6 Lillian Place, Lower Farringdon. He attended Farringdon School and was a member of the Cubs and then the Scouts. His first job was as a butcher boy for Mr Reed who had a shop next to the village shop on the Gosport Road in Lower Farringdon. Later he was a shop assistant in Channing & Harris (Grocers in Normandy Street). Finally, before joining the Royal Marines at 18, he was housekeeper for a lady at The Lawns in Holybourne.

 

STEPHENS Martin Tyringham SQUADRON LEADER D.F.C. 75730 NO. 3 GROUP TRAINING FLIGHT RAF, born 29th November 1901 at Crondale County Durham killed in action 12th February 1942 aged 40 years, buried at Vlissingen Northern Cemetery Flushing Netherlands. Martin (only son of Percy Somers Tyringham STEPHENS and Rachel WILKINSON who married in 1895) was a journalist prior to being commissioned in the Royal Air Force Volunteer Reserve on the 1st November 1939. He gained his Royal Aero Club Aviators’ Certificates at Brooklands Flying Club on the 11th September 1939 in a Tiger Moth Gipsy 130.  In May 1941 he was given command of No.3 Group Training Flight based at Newmarket which was his last posting before his death. His home was at Holly Cottage, Upper Farringdon with his mother and sisters: Joan Tyringham (1897-1956, spinster still living at Holly Cottage when she died) and Lettice Tyringham (1901-80, married James Charles Walter CONNELL).

 

WELLS Joseph AIRCRAFTMAN 1ST CLASS 617573 NO. 22 SQUADRON ROYAL AIR FORCE born 10th March 1921 killed 15th April 1940 age 19 years, commemorated on Runnymede Memorial near Egham.  Francis was the son of Joseph and Sarah WELLS. After leaving Llandovery Grammar School Joseph worked as a gardener at Chelmsford for Mr Duffey whose well known firm manufactured Ilford films. Joseph joined his family in Farringdon and took a temporary job at Rotherfield Park with the Scott’s until he was old enough to join the RAF. During his time in Farringdon he enjoyed cricket and tennis. He enlisted in the RAF on the 11th August 1938 aged 17 ½ years.

 

And his younger brother…..

 

WELLS Francis Donald SERGEANT 1600882 NO. 15 SQUADRON ROYAL AIR FORCE born 5th March 1924 at Llandovery Carmarthen killed in action on the 24th March 1944 aged 20 years, buried at the Berlin 1939-45 War Cemetery. Francis came to Farringdon in 1936 when he was 12 years old (the family moved to Farringdon when their father got a job as gardener at Deanyers (now called Upper Farringdon House). They lived at Deanyers Cottage, Upper Farringdon. He went to school in the village with his twin sister Margaret and their younger brother Tony. Francis left school when he was 14 years old and had 3 jobs before joining the RAF at 17 ½. He started working at Newton Valence for Lady Muriel DEREK-JONES under her gardener Mr Atkins of East View Gardens Farringdon. Next he had a job at the Warren Garage on the Basingstoke Road (now a private house). Finally he worked in an engineering factory on the Alton Industrial Estate.  He enjoyed cricket and tennis like his brother Joseph. He belonged to the Grasshoppers Cricket Club and played on their ground at Annett’s Farm. Francis enlisted in the RAF on the 5th October 1941 and was trained in the trades of wireless operator/gunner.

 

WOLFENDEN Jack LANCE CORPORAL 14369116 2ND BTN. THE HERTFORDSHIRE REGIMENT (TA) born 1924 killed in action in Normandy 6th June 1944 (D-Day) aged 20 years, buried at Bayeux War Cemetery France. Jack and his brother Richard Ashton (1922) were the sons of Richard Ashton WOLFENDEN (died 1929) and Elizabeth CRIPPS (died 1928) who were married in 1921 in the West Ham area. After their parents deaths they became Barnardo’s Boys and were fostered/brought up by Walter and Mary ELLIS at Rose Cottage, Farringdon - as a 6-year-old Jack is remembered as a ‘Roly poly little boy’. Before joining the Army Jack worked at Crows Farm Farringdon. His brother Richard also served in the Army and married Betty Isabel (daughter of Arthur Thomas BARRETT) on the 22nd October 1949 at Farringdon.