First World War in Headington & Marston
Roll of Honour of Holy Trinity Church, Headington Quarry

George Thomas PRITCHARD (1896–1916)

George Thomas Pritchard (or Prichard) was born in St Thomas’s, Oxford in 1896, the son of Joseph Thomas Pritchard (born in Watlington and baptised there as “Joseph Pritchet” on 28 October 1838) and his second wife Emily Jane Williams (known as Jane, born in Summertown in 1859, registered second quarter).

George’s father Joseph was a cordwainer, and moved around the country: in 1861 he was an unmarried man of 22, working for his own father in West Bromwich. He and his first wife Julia (born in St Paul’s parish, Oxford and probably the Julia Elizabeth Cleaver baptised at St Paul’s Church on 1 April 1838) had the following children (although no marriage can be found):

• Elizabeth Florence Pritchard (born in Headington Quarry in 1866/7, registered as “Lizzy Florence” first quarter of 1867)
• Sarah Pritchard (born in 1869/70, with place of birth variously given as Worcester and Pershore, Wiltshire; probably the child of that name registered in the Dudley district in the second quarter of 1869).
• Rosina Emily Pritchard (known as Rosa, born in St Aldate’s, Oxford in 1872, registered fourth quarter).

Joseph and Julia Pritchard evidently lived in Headington Quarry in the 1860s, but by the time of the 1871 census they had moved to Severn Street, Worcester with Lizzie Florence (4) and Sarah (2).

In 1881 Joseph was back in Oxfordshire again, this time in Market End, Bicester, and was still a cordwainer, but his first wife Julia was not with him. He lived alone in Bicester with his daughters Lizzie (14) and Rosina (8). His other daughter Sarah (13) was living nearby with her grandparents, Joseph Pritchard senior (72) who was also still working as a cordwainer, and his wife Ann (77). Meanwhile Julia Cleaver (43) was back with her widowed mother Elizabeth Cleaver at 116 Walton Street and working as a laundress. She is described as married, yet is recorded with the same surname as her mother, which suggests that she was the common-law wife of Joseph Pritchard. The laundry was a big one: Mrs Cleaver had four laundress servants living at the house, as well as her two laundress daughters.

By the time of the 1891 census Joseph was living at 104 Magdalen Road in east Oxford, and Julia was back home with her husband but described as a “lunatic”. Their three daughters were still at home: Elizabeth (22) and Rosa (18) were domestic servants, while Sarah (21) was a self-employed pedlar or hawker (and confusingly described as married, even though her surname is given as Pritchard). Boarding with them was Emily Jane Williams (29), known as Jane, an unmarried laundress born in Summertown: she was to become Joseph’s wife and George’s mother.

In the early 1890s, Julia Pritchard was committed to Littlemore Lunatic Asylum. It appears that Joseph Pritchard started a relationship with his lodger Jane, who was twenty years his junior, and their daughter Annie was born in about 1893. The following year Joseph’s first wife Julia died in the asylum at the age of 55, and was buried in its graveyard on 1 November 1894. (She was then described as being of Bicester, but this may relate to the place where she was living when she was first admitted.) Joseph married Jane in indecent haste (less than two months after Julia’s death) in the Headington registration district in the last quarter of 1894.

Joseph took on Jane Williams’s two older illegitimate children, Thirza Williams (born 1886/7) and Sydney Williams (born 1888/9), and it is possible that they too were his children. Joseph & Jane definitely had the following six children together:

• Annie Williams, later Pritchard (born in Cowley St John in 1893/4 before their marriage; possibly the Harriet Ann Williams registered in the Headington district in the second quarter of 1893)
• Eliza Pritchard (born on 30 March 1895 at 10 Catherine Street and baptised at Cowley SS Mary & John Church on 28 June 1895, died at 10 Catherine Street aged 5 months, buried in the children’s plot of that church on 2 September 1895)
• George Thomas Pritchard (born on 27 April 1896 at 10 Catherine Street and baptised at Cowley SS Mary & John Church on 29 May 1896)
• Mary Anne Pritchard (born in 1898, registered fourth quarter and baptised at Cowley SS Mary & John Church on 13 September 1900); died aged nearly two at the Radcliffe Infirmary and buried at Cowley SS Mary & John Church on 29 September 1900 in unconsecrated ground under the Burial Act
• Rhoda Pritchard (born in Cowley in 1899/1900, registered first quarter of 1900, and baptised at the age of seven at St Thomas’s Church on 20 January 1907)
• Lydia Jane Pritchard (born in Oxford on 20 September 1903 and baptised at St Thomas’s Church on 16 December 1903).

Joseph and his second wife Jane lived at 10 Catherine Street in east Oxford at the start of their marriage, and Joseph was still listed as a boot maker at 10 Catherine Street in Kelly’s Directory for 1899.

Their daughter Rhoda was born in Cowley proper in 1900, but by the time of the 1901 census Joseph (56) and Jane (41) were living at 36 Essex Street in east Oxford with three children born to Jane before the marriage: Thirza Williams (14), Sydney Williams (12), and Annie Williams/Pritchard (8), as well as two born in wedlock: George Pritchard (5), and Rhoda Pritchard (1). They also had a married couple lodging with them in this small house, and in addition Joseph also worked at home on his own account as a bootmaker.

The family then moved to St Thomas’s parish in Oxford: in 1903 their address there was given as 7 Wareham Yard and in 1907 as Bookbinders Yard.

By the time of the 1911 census the family had moved to 7 Hollybush Row and all four surviving children from the second marriage were at home: Annie (17) was working as a factory hand; George (15) was a news boy; and Rhoda (11) and Lydia (7) were presumably at school. George’s father completed the census form himself and claimed to have been married to Jane for 18 years, perhaps to make Annie (who now had the surname Pritchard and was described as Joseph’s daughter rather than his stepdaughter) appear legitimate. The Thirza Pritchard (23) who was in the Cowley Road Workhouse in 1911 is likely to be the former Thirza Williams.

Shortly after the 1911 census, George’s father Joseph must have moved with his family back up to Headington Quarry. He evidently ended up in Headington Workhouse, as he died there at the age of 75, and was buried in Holy Trinity churchyard on 15 November 1915.

In the First World War, George Thomas Pritchard served as a Private in the ill-fated 2nd Battalion (“F” Company) of the Oxfordshire & Buckinghamshire Light Infantry (Service No. 9832). He died of wounds at the Somme in France at the age of 20 on 27 July 1916.

He is buried in the Carnoy Military Cemetery, and is listed on the stone plaque in the porch of Holy Trinity Church in Headington Quarry.

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Postscript

George’s mother

• Mrs Jane Pritchard moved to Old Headington after the death of her husband and son, and George’s war record states that she was living at 35 St Andrew’s Road after the end of the First World War (this may be an error for No. 33, the home of her daughter Mrs Rhoda Stockford, below). George’s mother died at the age of 67 in the London Road Hospital (the former Headington Workhouse) and was buried in Headington Cemetery on 22 December 1931.

George’s full sisters

• Rhoda Pritchard (born 1899/1900) married William Stockford in the Headington registration district in the third quarter of 1917. He was then serving as a soldier, and for a while after the war was a munitions worker. He then returned to agricultural labour, and until 1925 the couple lived at 33 St Andrew’s Road. By 1927 they had moved to Wick Farm, where William was the cowman. They had five children baptised at St Andrew’s Church: William George Stockford (born 5 November 1917, bapt. 6 January 1918); Cecilia Florence Stockford (born 23 January 1920, bapt. 7 March 1920); Barbara Eileen Stockford (born 28 February 1925, bapt. 5 April 1925); Vera Constance Stockford (born 18 November 1927, bapt. 5 February 1928); and Raymond Stockford (born 3 July 1929, bapt. 4 August 1929). George’s sister Mrs Rhoda Stockford died in the Oxford registration district in 1991.
• Lydia Jane Pritchard (born 1903) married Frank Stockford in the Headington registration district in the second quarter of 1925, and their son Gordon Dennis Stockford was born at 15 Old High Street on 22 January 1926 and baptised at St Andrew’s Church on 7 March 1926. Frank Stockford died in the Oxford registration district in 1951, and George’s sister Mrs Lydia Jane Stockford married her second husband, James Dare, in the Oxford district in the fourth quarter of 1953.