First World War in Headington & Marston
Roll of Honour of All Saints’ Church, Highfield

(Herbert) Alfred CULL (1884–1916)

(Cull is also listed on the St Andrew’s Church Roll of Honour and thus appears twice in the “tour”)

Herbert Alfred Cull (known as Alfred) was born in Swindon, Wiltshire in 1884, the youngest son of George Cull (born in Hardwick, Gloucestershire and baptised there on 26 September 1841) and Eliza Williams (born in Newent, Gloucestershire in the second quarter of 1840).

His parents were married in Newent in the second quarter of 1866, and they had eight children:

• Elizabeth Hannah Cull (born in Blaenavon, Monmouthshire in 1866/7, registered Abergavenny district first quarter of 1867)
• Keturah Arabella Cull (born in Blaenavon, Monmouthshire in 1869, registered Abergavenny district second quarter of 1869)
• Mary Ann Cull (born in Blaenavon, Monmouthshire in 1871, registered Abergavenny district third quarter)
• Thomas Wood W. Cull (born in Blaenavon, Monmouthshire in 1873, registered Abergavenny district third quarter)
• Charlotte Amelia Cull (born in Swindon in 1876, registered third quarter)
• William George Cull (born in Swindon in 1877, registered third quarter); died age 7 in 1884 (registered Highworth district second quarter)
• James Cull (born in Swindon in 1879, registered fourth quarter)
• Herbert Alfred Cull, known as Alfred (born in Swindon in 1884, registered fourth quarter).

Alfred’s father worked as a fireman on the Great Western Railway, and began his married life in Blaenavon, Monmouthshire. At the time of the 1871 census he was aged 31 and living at Glan Toran, Trevithin with his wife, their first two children, his younger brother Job Cull (14) who was working as a forge labourer, and a lodger.

In about 1875 the family followed the railway to Swindon, and at the time of the 1881 census the family, now with seven children, was living at 23 Prospect there.

By the time of the 1891 census the family had moved to 127 Stafford Street in Swindon, but of the children only four were at home: Alfred himself (6), Thomas (18), who was a GWR fireman like his father, Charlotte (15), and James (11). Alfred’s sister Elizabeth (22) was working as a general servant in Bristol; Arabella (as Keturah now called herself) was a 21-year-old milliner on a visit to the Weston family in Calne; and Mary Ann Cull (19) was a draper’s assistant in Brighton.

Alfred’s father George Cull died in 1897 (registered third quarter). By the time of the 1901 census, Alfred’s widowed mother (61) was employed as housekeeper to a retired coachman John Ball (84) in Hinton Waldrist, Oxfordshire and Alfred (16) was the only one of her children still living with her: he was now working as a farm labourer. His three sisters were all married, and his two brothers do not appear to be in the census. His married sister Keturah was the key to the family’s arrival in Headington: she and her husband Tom Weston, who was a gardener, were living in the two-roomed lodge of Bury Knowle House on the London Road (now public lavatories) with their first three children. Bury Knowle House itself was then occupied by the barrister Major Charles Miskin Laing.

By 1906 Alfred’s sister Keturah had moved to Horton-cum-Studley, where her husband Tom Weston was a cowman on an estate. It appears that her mother and Alfred moved into Bury Knowle Lodge when they moved out, as they were there by the time of the 1911 census: Alfred (26) is then described as a labourer, and his mother (70) as an old age pensioner.

In the First World War Alfred Cull served as a Private in the 1st/4th Battalion of the Oxfordshire & Buckinghamshire Light Infantry (Service No. 200590). He was killed in action at the age of 34 in France at the Battle of the Somme on 13 August 1916 and is remembered on the Thiepval Memorial (Pier and Face 10A and 10D).

Alfred Cull is listed on the roll of honour of both St Andrew’s Church and of All Saints’ Church, Highfield, which implies that his mother moved from Bury Knowle Lodge to her later home at 82 Lime Walk (then numbered 68) in Highfield parish during the war.

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Postscript

Alfred’s mother

• Mrs Eliza Cull died at the age of 86 and was buried at Headington Cemetery on 8 June 1926. At the time of her death she was living at 82 Lime Walk (then numbered 68).

Alfred’s siblings

• Keturah Arabella Cull (born 1869) married Tom Weston in the third quarter of 1893 in the Highworth registration district. They had six children by 1911: William George A. Weston (born in Corsham, Wiltshire in 1895); Maud Keturah Weston (born in Bath in 1897); Agnes G. Weston (born in Headington on 18 May 1902 and baptised at St Andrew’s Church on 6 July 1902); twins Elsie Kathleen Weston and Iris Arabella E. Weston (born in Horton-cum-Studley in 1906); and Robert J. A. Weston (born in Horton-cum-Studley in late 1910).