Roll of Honour of St Andrew’s Church, Old Headington

James BATTS (1879–1916)

Wrongly captioned: should be J. Batts

James Batts was born in Stanton Harcourt in 1879, the son of Frederick Batts (born in Stanton Harcourt in 1843 and baptised there on 16 July) and Ann Trinder (born in Stanton Harcourt in 1837/8). His parents were married at Stanton Harcourt on 24 December 1867 and had the following children:

• Mary Ann Batts (born at Stanton Harcourt in 1868 and baptised there on 1 June)
• William Batts (born at Stanton Harcourt in 1870 and baptised there on 5 June)
• Emma Batts (born at Stanton Harcourt in 1872 and baptised there on 25 December)
• Fanny Batts (born at Stanton Harcourt in 1875 and baptised there on 4 April 1875);
  died aged two in 1877
• Sarah Batts (born at Stanton Harcourt in 1877 and baptised there on 20 May)
• James Batts (born at Stanton Harcourt in 1879 and baptised there on 1 June).

At the time of the 1881 census, James (1) was living with his parents at Stanton Harcourt. Three of his older siblings were at school: Mary Ann (12), who is recorded as being a cripple with a diseased hip; William (10); and Emma (8).

When James was just nine years old, his mother Ann Batts died at the age of 52 and was buried at Stanton Harcourt on 26 May.

By 1891 James (11), who was already working as an agricultural labourer, was living at 8 Black Ditch, Stanton Harcourt with his father Frederick Batts (47), who was also an agricultural labourer, and his siblings Mary Ann (22), who was a shirt needlewoman, and William (20) and Sarah (13). His sister Emma (18) was staying at West End, Chipping Norton with her maternal grandparents Thomas & Susannah Trinder, who were both aged 79.

James Batts joined the army before the First World War, and at the time of the 1901 census, when he was 22, he was a gunner in the Royal Garrison Artillery billeted at Dover Castle.

James had left the army by 1911 and was working as a baker in Old Headington, lodging at 1 Elmbank Cottages with the farm labourer Richard Morris (71) and his wife Catherine (73). Meanwhile James’s father  Frederick (67) had retired and was still living in Stanton Harcourt with James's brother William (40), who was a smallholder, and Sarah (33), who was a charwoman.

♥ On 22 October 1911 at St Andrew’s Church, Old Headington, James Batts (32) married Elsie May Gammon (22), who was born in Headington on 7 December 1888 and baptised at St Andrew’s Church on 27 January 1889 and was the daughter of John Thomas Gammon, a Headington gardener, and his wife Jane,

James and Elsie Batts lived in Old High Street (probably at the British Workman, where his widow was definitely living in 1923). James Batts was described as a baker at the baptism of his first two children. His third child was born nearly three months after his death at the Somme (hence her middle name):

• James Frederick Batts (born in Old Headington on 11 July 1912 and baptised at St Andrew’s Church on 1 September)
• Olive May Batts (born in Old Headington on 26 October 1913 and baptised at St Andrew’s Church on 15 November)
• Joyce Nellie Somme Batts (born in Old Headington on 24 November 1916 and baptised at St Andrew’s Church on 7 January 1917).

In the First World War James Batts served as a gunner in the Royal Garrison Artillery (Service No. 2119). He was wounded at the Battle of the Somme, and was presumably taken to hospital in Rouen, where he died of his wounds on 2 September 1916 at the age of 38. He was buried at the St Sever Cemetery, Rouen (B 24. 12).

James Batts is remembered on the Stanton Harcourt War Memorial and on this roll of honour of St Andrew’s Church in Old Headington.

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Postscript

James’s father

• Frederick Batts died at the age of 85 and was buried at Stanton Harcourt on 2 May 1929.

James’s widow

• Mrs Elsie May Batts (32) lived at the British Workman at 67 Old High Street (then numbered 27) with her three children. She was still living there when on 10 February 1923 at St Andrew's Church she married her second husband Henry Charles Burden (39), a furnaceman from Coventry. After the wedding she moved back with him to Coventry, and the 1939 Register shows her living at 176 Cross Road there with Henry, who was a sewage works manager, and her children James, Olive, and Joyce. Mrs Burden, formerly Mrs Batts, died at Bishops Tachbrook, Warwickshire at the age of 59 and was buried in St Chad's churchyard there on 24 December 1947.

James’s children

• James Frederick Batts (born 1912) was a cinema manager in Coventry at the time of the 1939 Register. He married Kathleen Weston in Coventry in the second quarter of 1940. They had two children. James died in Coventry in 1980 at the age of 69.
• Olive May Batts (born 1913) was an art silk works chargehand in Coventry at the time of the 1939 Register. She married William Manning in Coventry later that year. She appears to have died in Kenilworth, Warwickshire, on 30 June 2008.
• Joyce Nellie Somme Batts (born 1916) was an art silk works department clerk in Coventry at the time of the 1939 Register. She married Walter L. Waddell in Coventry in the third quarter of 1940. She died in the Mid-Warwickshire district in November 2004.