Alice Mary Snell update

The early life of Alice Mary Snell contained some turmoil , with the erratic behaviour of her father Charles Henry Snell, no doubt causing her much grief. Her problems would return.

In the blog of woensdag 22 augustus 2012 we learned about her marriage to Lewis William Murrayton Murray on 28 Jan 1882. Lewis is born in Cornwall in 1856 and in the 1881 census is shown as a farmer employing 2 men. He dies in 1894 aged 37 leaving his wife with three young children. The story of what happens is tragic.

The 1891 census shows him at Pevrith Windsor, St Martin, East Looe Cornwall He is 35, a farmer with his spouse Alice Mary Snell 33 (daughter of Sarah Heath Vlieland). They have 3 sons William Charles 8, George Frederick 6, John Coxetter 4, all born St Martins, Cornwall and they have two servants.

The children are registered as follows:

q4 1882 Murray William Charles L Liskeard 5c 65

q3 1884 Murray George Frederick Liskeard 5c 63

q4 1886 Murray John Coxetter Liskeard 5c 61

He is a successful farmer and horse breeder. The Western Times of 07 August 1891 reports on the West of England Horse Show where his horses win prizes:

Hacks or Hunters 1st; £6 Lewis W Murray Looe -"The Dream"

Brood Mares calculated to produce hunters in foal; 3rd £1 Lewis William Murray Looe - "Village Girl"


He is also, unfortunately a drinker; seemingly on a 'too regular' basis. One visit to his local had tragic consequences! He is good friends with Joseph Congdon of Badham, Duloe and on 27th March 1894 they both seem to drink too much, ending up in The Bell Hotel at Liskeard.


19 April 1894 - Cornishman On a charge of the manslaughter of Lewis William Murray, Joseph Congdon, of Badham, Duloe, was on Thursday at Liskeard committed to the ensuing assizes

14 June 1894 - Western Morning News report of the Cornwall Summer Assizes which had resumed the previous day tells the story of his trial of "for the manslaughter of Lewis Wm. M. Murray" as does the Royal Cornwall Gazette, both in great depth. This is a summary of the various reports. Witnesses and reporters have differing accounts. This seems to be the most likely story:.

Murray, 37, "a gentleman farmer living near Looe" had long been a 'hard liver' and heavy drinker (rendering him more prone to erysipelas" an acute, febrile infectiousdisease, caused by a specific streptococcus, characterized by diffusely spreadingdeep-red inflammation). The accused was a man of means living in Liskeard. They met at the Barley Sheaf Liskeard after the cattle market where they had a good deal of drink.

They then both ended up at the Bell Hotel, Congdon considerably the worse for drink. Murray, it is suggested, was so drunk at the Bell Hotel that Congdon suggested that they went home together .... Murray shook him off and would not go. and Congdon had sat on the bench behind the door and fallen asleep . In due course someone, possibly Lewis, tried to wake him from his drunken sleep by shaking him by the arm and putting his hand on his his head.

...witnesses agree both prisoner and deceased were the worse for drink ... one saw the prisoner who was flourishing his stick hit the deceased with it...the two men closed, struggled and then fell...as Lewis fell either struck or passed close to the edge of the seat... bleeding from a wound over the left eyebrow. ... one witness said that Lewis thought "it was nothing" another that he told Congdon "You have struck me with a stick . I will make you pay for it" (three men, including Courtney Sergeant, Bell landlord, when cross-examined confirmed that they had not seen the actual blow)..

...both were turned out and Murray rode the three and a half miles home....widow Alice stated he came home at 11:15 PM ... following day ...complained of being distracted in the head which became very much swollen. On March 29th she called in Drs Bond and Harty. The wound was poulticed but Murray continued to get worse and on 2nd April he died.

Alice was, as you see above, called by the prosecution and reported a conversation with her husband's friend. to quote the Western Morning News: After the inquest prisoner called on her and said ... "I should not have done it if there had been anyone to take me away; but that is the worst of the Bell. They will let you do anything you like there...""


Dr William Hammond of Liskeard who performed the post mortem ...(said) deceaseds skull was the thinnest he had ever seen. It was semi transparent and a really violent blow must have fractured it. .... the liver spleen and kidneys were diseased ... caused by excessive dirinking ... never seen organs in such a state ...


The defence summarised that, though Congdon had struck out wildly with the stick and hit two of the company, there was no evidence that he had actually struck Lewis.

Character witnesses including his Vicar, Reverend Bush, and his Bank Manager reported Congdon "bore a high character as a peaceful good natured man incapable of an unkind action"

The Judge's summing up was that the jury had to decide whether Joseph Congdon had struck the blow (the fact that such a blow would not have killed a fit man was irrelevent) or whether Lewis was the aggressor and Lewis had struck his head on the bench and the jury returned a verdict of not guilty and prisoner was discharged.

And what of Alice Mary Murray (nee Snell)? Her words to Joseph Congdon at that meeting after the inquest sum it up: "You have left me in a dreadful place with three boys to bring up". Joseph had told her "I will help you. I will make recompense". Alice's Mother in Law Jane who had been present had said "You will have to Mr Congdon..." I have as yet been able to trace none of the four in subsequent censuses....

thanks Ray

documentary Cressy

Thanks to Len we have a trailer of this documentary .

Frank Vieland Parker was a crewmember of the Cressy.
In Dutch newspapers</b> were lots of articles about the Cressy

Kapitein Vlieland

The ship of captain Vlieland is stranded near Knokke Belgium .
 looking for other articles it is an other story.

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Welcome to a new Jerome

D-Day

Today for the 70th time remembrance of d-day.
reminds me of many things written in this blog.
of soldiers and places of ships and people that lost their lives .And also about monuments.

Sir Reginald Theodore Blomfield (20 December 1856 – 27 December 1942) was a British architect, garden designer and author. Reginald Blomfield was born in Nymet Tracey, Devon, son of the local clergyman. He was educated at Haileybury school and at Exeter College, Oxford. His uncle, Sir Arthur Blomfield, was an architect and Blomfield followed him into the profession, training first under his uncle, then at the Royal Academy in London, where he later (1906) became Professor of Architecture. Also in 1906, he redesigned the United University Club in Pall Pall on a grander scale.
After establishing his own practice, he designed the Menin Gate Memorial in Ypres, Flanders, the Pall Mall premises of the Carlton Club destroyed in World War 2 (rather than the current premises in St James's Street), Lambeth Bridge, works at Lady Margaret Hall, Oxford, Highgate School, the 1923 Royal Air Force Memorial in London, and Goldsmiths College. He became known for remodelling streets in the early 20th Century such as Regent Street in London in the 1920s and The Headrow in Leeds from 1929. These are notable for being constructed in a uniform architectural style, and Pevsner comments on the similarity of the Leeds scheme to the earlier one in Regent Street. In 1913 he was awarded the Gold Medal of the Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA) and was elected to the Royal Academy in 1914.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reginald_Blomfield)

Sir Reginald Blomfield
Reginald Theodore Blomfield was born on 20th December 1856 at Nymet Tracey in Devonshire. He was the third son of a country rector. His ancestors the Blomviles, came to England with William the Conqueror in 1066. He was educated at Haileybury and at Exeter College Oxford. In 1881 he started training as an architect in the office of his uncle Sir Arthur Blomfield. A year later he was admitted as a student of architecture at the Royal Academy. In 1883 he set up on his own as an architect and became one of the early members of the Art Workers Guild. He struck up friendships with Norman Shaw, Edwin Lutyens, D.S. MacColl and William Morris. He became involved with the Arts and Crafts movement. In 1900 he published a Short History of Renaissance Architecture in England and in response to the Boer War, joined the Inns of Court Mounted Infantry, (A Territorial Army unit based in Lincoln's Inn in the Holborn area of London). In 1906 he was appointed Professor of Architecture to the Royal Academy. He was elected President of the RIBA in 1912, was awarded their Royal Gold Medal 1913 and elected a member of the Royal Academy in 1914. Upon the outbreak of the Great War, he renewed his acquaintance with the Inns of Court and dug trenches all over London in the company of some of the most distinguished legal minds of the Empire and the war poet Laurence Binyon. In 1918 he was appointed one of the Principal Architects of the Imperial War Graves Commission and for the next nine years was heavily involved with the design of their cemeteries behind the Western Front. He designed the Cross of Sacrifice [5] which stands in the Commission's cemeteries. He collaborated with Sir Aston Webb and Sir W. Hamo Thornycroft in designing several war memorials for London. They were forbidden use of the Royal Parks, which explains the considerable number of war memorials on Victoria Embankment. He designed the Royal Air Force Memorial on the Embankment, the municipal memorials at Leeds, Luton and Torquay and the Memorial Chapel at Oundle School. In 1918 he was appointed to the memorials committee convened by Sir Alfred Mond, First Commissioner of Works. In 1919 he was sent by the War Office to Ypres to design a memorial intended initially to take 40,000 names of those who had no known grave. He chose the site of the Menin Gate and designed there the memorial that was to be the best known work of his career. There were to be major difficulties involved with its erection, which he overcame with the help of the brilliant engineer Sir Maurice Fitzmaurice. The completion of this commission ended his time with the Commission. In December 1927, Sir Fabian Ware wrote to him: 'I think you will understand it, when I say that everybody working had wished, looking back on the past years, to send you a special message of gratitude for the great work that you have done for the Commission…. We are all deeply grateful to you, and very proud to have been associated with you'. A pugnacious and energetic figure, Blomfield relished a fight and engaged in the architectural controversies of his day with gusto. His plans for remodelling Carlton Gardens led to a debate in the House of Commons and his resignation from the Royal Fine Art Commission. He published Memoirs of an Architect (1932), Modernismus (1934), Sebastien Le Prestre de Vauban (1938) and Richard Norman Shaw (1940). He designed the façade of the Carlton Club in London and Lady Margaret Hall in Oxford. He was also responsible for remodelling Regent Street and Piccadilly Circus. He designed Lambeth Bridge and St George's Memorial Church in Ypres, which was built in 1928. He died in 1942. A bronze portrait bust by Sir William Reid Dick is in the National Portrait Gallery.
(http://www.veterans-uk.info/remembrance/blomfield.html)


The cross represents the faith of the majority, the sword the military character of the cemetery. Crosses of Sacrifice are, in general, found in cemeteries with over 40 war graves. There are three different sizes of cross ranging from 18 to 32 feet high. The largest size is only used in the largest sites. In sites where subsistence is an issue the Cross of Sacrifice is often replaced with one built into the boundary wall of the cemetery

fellow workers

In the newspaper we find that flowers were sent by fellow workers at No 2 V.A.D.Hospital .

VA 2 - The Modern School (Bishop Blackall)

about Voluntary Aid Detachment 

VA stood for Voluntary Aid Association.
The service supplemented the army medical service of the Territorial Force.

Some of the VA Hospitals in Exeter:
VA 1 - West of England Eye Hospital
VA 2 - The Modern School (Bishop Blackall)
VA 3 - The City Hospital, Heavitree
VA 4 - Topsham Barracks
VA 5 - The College Hostel (Bradninch House)
VA 6 - Bishop's Palace (from 1917)
VA 7 - Streatham Hall Temporary Hospital

Mrs Vlieland is grappling with the novel situation

Western Times 06 November 1914

Rev.J.N.Vlieland

28 May 1870 

Bishop of Dover  Edward Parry