A PUB IN EAST LONDON 1939

 

Modern flats in Queensbridge Road.  The area has a mixture of historic and post war housing.

No, not that one.  No, not the Marquis of Lansdowne.  The pub that is the focus of this short blog is The Victory in Queensbridge Road Hackney, about 10 minutes walk from the Lansdowne. 

My Father, Fredick Alfred TRENDALL (1914-1983), moved into the Marquis of Lansdowne in 1939 and shortly afterwards married his first wife Lillian BARKER (nee WILSON) (1909-1954).  Lillian was a widow and was running the pub that has previously been run by her first husband. George Stanley BARKER.

At the same time The Victory was being run by Annie Agnes RICE (nee MEHEW) (1881-1965) the widow of Albert Charles RICE (1878-1921).  Albert was the son of Charles Osborne RICE and Mary Ann Nelson TRENDALL (1846-1914) and, with his siblings, had been brought up in a Lunatic Asylum in Kent where his parents worked.

Mary Ann Nelson TRENDALL had an interesting and tragic life.  She is the subject of a linked blog.  She was the daughter of William TRENDALL (1820-?).  He was the twin brother of Thomas TRENDALL (1820-1878) who is my direct ancestor.

Also living at The Victory in 1939 was Ann Elizabeth TRENDALL (1853-1944).  She is the oldest person to appear on my family tree.  She was also the daughter of William TRENDALL and was born in the family house and business (he was a Pawnbroker) in Cromer Street St Pancras. She was therefore the Aunt of Albert Charles RICE, and Edward Osborne RICE  (1868-1953), who was also living at The Victory in 1939.

Ann Elizabeth TRENDALL never married and spent her working life in domestic service, mostly as a cook.  Her life spanned an era of great change.  She was born at a time of oil lamps in a city that relied entirely on horses and a few trains for transport.  She saw the coming of the London Underground, gas, electricity, radio and the motor car.  Her relatives and friends fought in wars from the Crimea to the struggle against Hitler.  She was in London during the air raids of the First World War and the Blitz of the Second.

My sisters were nearly 2 years old when she died half a mile from where they lived, but they never met.  The overlap between Maureen and Christine TRENDALL (1942 -  ) and Ann Elizabeth TRENDALL covers a span of 170 years and counting. 

Ann Elizabeth TRENDALL often visited relatives.  For example on the night of the 1911 census  she was with her 1^st cousin; Eliza HOOKER (nee TRENDALL) (1841-1911) in Beccles, Suffolk.  Eliza was the daughter of Robert TRENDALL (1809-?) the elder brother of William and Thomas TRENDALL (B1820). Eliza died a couple of weeks after the 1911 census was taken.  At the time of the 1871 census  Anne Elizabeth was staying with her Grandfather William JOHNSON (abt 1794-1874) in Northaw near Cuffley, Herts.  For a while Anne Elizabeth and the RICEs lived in North Kensington, a short walk from the birthplace of my Grandfather Frederick TRENDALL (1890-1940).

When Ann Elizabeth TRENDALL died she was buried in Kensal Green cemetery.  Not far from the (unmarked) grave of Thomas TRENDALL (1820-1878), my Great Great Grandfather and her Uncle. (1)

The Victory, which was about the same age as the Lansdowne, closed in the 1950s and was demolished to make way for the blocks of flats that now occupy the eastern end of Queensbridge Road.  I have not been able to find a photograph, although there are many pubs with similar names in the area.  The Victoria, for example, is a pub that survives at the other end of Queensbridge Road.

Ann Elizabeth TRENDALL represents an important link to the past.  She reminds us that there is a lot that we don’t know about our fairly recent history.  Why did my Father and his Father have little contact with their extended family?  Was there a falling out?  Or was it just a case of different branches of the family drifting apart while living in a busy city?  Ann clearly kept in touch with various parts of the family, but not with my direct line.

The pubs of the East End operated as a virtual network.  For example local branches of the Licensed Victuallers Association ran events and outings and the Morning Advertiser was full of news about who was running which pub, especially in the capital.  Were the two parts of the family aware of each other?  We are unlikely ever to know.

 

Philip Trendall

May 2026

 

Corrections and comments always welcome

 

 

(1)     She would have known Thomas TRENDALL.  When she was little Thomas lived at the same and adjacent addresses.  Her Father, William, and Thomas were twin brothers.  She was in her late 20s were he died – she may even have attended his funeral.

SPOTLIGHT ON MARY ANN NELSON TRENDALL OR: " FROM THE ASYLUM TO THE PUB"

 

Mary Ann Nelson TRENDALL (1846-1914 ) had an interesting life and an interesting name.  It is not clear where the name Nelson came from.  I cannot see any earlier uses of the name, although it was inherited by at least one of her descendants (1).  Perhaps her father, William TRENDALL (1820-?) was a fan of the long dead Admiral.  Nelson’s Column had just been completed when Mary was born.

Mary was brought up in Cromer Street, St Pancras where her father (and her grandmother, Mary BARTLETT c1795-1859) ran a pawnbrokers.  She was one of at least three children.  Her sister never married and in her final years lived with Mary’s children (see connected blog).  Her brother ended up as a fisherman in Aberdeen (see blog dated August 2020).  Her father was the twin brother of Thomas TRENDALL (1820-1878) and the families lived in close proximity.   She was baptised at St Pancras 4^th October 1846 having been born 14^th September in the same year.

When she was 12 her mother, Elizabeth TRENDALL (JOHNSON) (c1823-1858) died at home.  The following year her Grandmother, who it seems lived with the family rather than with her husband, also died at Cromer Street.  Five years later in 1863 she had a child out of wedlock.  She was 17.

Her son was born in Stroud Green, near Finsbury Park London.  The name of the father is not recorded and the entry in the baptism register makes it very clear that the child was illegitimate.  The birth was registered by Thomas TRENDALL, probably her uncle, my great great grandfather, (1820-1878).  She named the boy Thomas Johnson TRENDALL, the middle name being the maiden name of her mother.  We do not know who the father was, but there is a chance that it was a neighbour who was, a couple of years later, to become her husband.  An alternative explanation for the choice of middle name would be that she named him after his father – there were several JOHNSON families living within a five minute walk of the TRENDALL household

In the 1871 census Thomas Johnson TRENDALL was living with, or visiting, his grandfather, William JOHNSON (c1794-1874) in Northaw, Herts.  William JOHNSON had remarried shortly after the death of his first wife Mary BARTLETT.  His new wife was a widow 26 years younger than he was.

Mary Ann Nelson TRENDALL married Charles Osborne RICE (1844-1911) in March 1866.  He was an ‘Engine Smith’ and an engineer.  He lived in Brighton Street St Pancras which no longer exists.  Brighton Street was adjacent to Cromer Street making the couple very close neighbours. It appears that Charles adopted Thomas Johnson TRENDALL (2) shortly after the marriage, as the latter is described on his death certificate as Thomas Johnson RICE, aged 11, in 1875.  The cause of death was given as “Acute Rheumatism (10 days) and Bronchitis (3 days)”.   Shortly after getting married the couple had moved to the new City of London Lunatic Asylum at Stone in Kent.  Charles worked on the heating and other mechanical systems.  Mary may have also have worked there in addition to her childcare duties.   It was a good place to work, quite well paid and with accommodation. 

The City of London Lunatic Asylum at Stone nr Dartford around the time that Charles and Mary lived and worked there.  The hospital closed in 2005.  (picture from Wikipedia)

The loss of her son was a tragedy.  One that was familiar to many parents in the nineteenth century.  Familiarity did not lighten the loss.

In around 1871 Mary’s father, William TRENDALL, emigrated to Canada to join his older brother, Robert TRENDALL (1809-  ).

 Charles and Mary had several more children.

Emily Elizabeth RICE (1866-1870) was born seven months after her parent’s marriage and just before the move to the Asylum.  She died, aged 3, of congestion of the lungs and throat (3 days) in 1870.

Mary’s third child, Edward Osborne RICE (1868-1953) had a long life, dying, aged 85, in the Mile End Hospital.  He never married and appears in the connected blog: ‘A Pub in East London’.  His death certificate describes him as a ‘retired Licensed Victualler’ of 33 Queensbridge Road.  This was the address of the Victory public house.

Mary’s second daughter, Edith Helen RICE (1871- ) lived into adulthood and was married in 1891 in Marylebone to a widower, Alfred HOBLEY (c1863 - ) who was a clerk at the Asylum and who was the son of the Clerk of Works at that institution. One of the witnesses to the marriage was a TRENDALL but it is not clear which one.  It may well have been Mary’s sister, Ann Eliizabeth TRENDALL (see connected blog).  The City of London Asylum was a large place with many staff.  It is not surprising that it functioned as a village like community.

Two years later another child arrived.  William RICE (1873-1873) was named after his grandfather, William TRENDALL.  The baby only lived for a few hours.  The cause of death being recorded as ‘premature birth’.  Mary herself registered both the birth and the death two days later.

In February 1877 Florence Lillian RICE was born.  She lived until April in the same year.  She died of intussusception (5 days).  This a serious problem with the bowel that effects infants.  Before the development of modern diagnostic and treatment techniques (including antibiotics) it was normally fatal.

Mary and Charles had one further child.  Albert Osborne Stanley RICE was born at the Asylum in 1878.  Albert lived until 1921 having married in 1902.  He had four children.  He joined the army at the age of 36.  During his service he contracted TB and was discharged as ‘70% disabled’.  His youngest daughter was born a few weeks after his death.  For a large part of his life he worked as a barman and a publican.  He is buried in the same grave at Kensal Green Cemetery as his aunt; Ann Elizabeth TRENDALL (1853-1944).

Mary and Charles spent around 20 years working at the Asylum.  In the 1891 census Charles is shown as Clerk of Works.  A very good job, but for reasons that are not known (staff records are very limited in this period) the family left Stone in 1892  and returned to London.  In 1893 Charles was running the Gladstone beer house in South Norwood.  It was a lowly establishment and he applied (unsuccessfully) to the Magistrates to upgrade the licence to allow the sale of all types of alcohol rather than just beer.  The police confirmed that the place had been better since Charles had been running it but clearly there were challenges.

                            The Gladstone in 2007 shortly before being converted into flats

In 1901 the family were living at 96 York Road Battersea and Charles is described as a Beer House ?? (for fear of throwing stones in glass houses I will not make comment on the hand writing on this census!).  Earlier, in 1896, Charles appears on the electoral roll at 96 Usk Road.  This is probably the same address.  It was the site of the Somers Arms until 2000 when it was demolished. 

The family stayed at the Somers Arms until 1905.

Although the records mainly record Charles’s name we must remember that Mary was the landlady of these establishments.  Her name was not on the licence or on the electoral register because she was a woman, not because she was not involved in the business.

By 1911 Mary had Charles had retired and were lodging at an address in Wandsworth.  Also at the same address was their son, Albert, and his wife and child.  Charles died at the same address in December 1911 of a cerebral haemorrhage.

Mary lived on until she was 67, dying on 20 February 1914.  This was a couple of days before her 1^st cousin, once removed, celebrated the birth of a son, my Father.  Mary died of breast cancer.

We do not know how the extended Trendall family interacted.  We have no letters, documents or personal memories to tell us about the everyday life of our ancestors.  All we have is bare facts and interesting co-incidences.  We do know that Mary Ann Nelson TRENDALL lost four of her seven children when they were young and it is hard to imagine the pain that this must have caused her.  But even here there is a mystery.  On the 1911 census quoted above it is recorded that Mary and Charles had 8 children, six of whom had died.  I cannot trace these additional children and we know that Thomas Johnson TRENDALL was not born within the marriage.  Perhaps this is a recording error but possibly I have missed something and the tragedy that surrounded the life of Mary and Charles was even greater than I have described it.

 

Philip Trendall

May 2026

 

 

 

A Few Glimpses of the Siblings of Joseph TRENDALL (C1769-1838)

 

Joseph TRENDALL is important in the history of the Trendall family because he lived long enough to have his death registered under the arrangements prescribed by the Births and Deaths Registration Act 1836.  He died on 28^th Nov 1838 at 14 Ashford Street Hoxton, London.  We know a fair bit about his work as a Baker, about where he lived and about how he prospered.  He was my 3 x Great Grandfather

Joseph made a Will on 30^th Oct 1837.  Perhaps he knew he was ill – there is no evidence to support this apart from a rather shaky  signature as a witness to his daughter’s marriage in Feb 1837.  His Will was the usual complex mix of legacies that seem common in the early nineteenth century.  It gives rise to a small mystery in that he makes no mention of his sons William and Thomas (b1820).  He does mention his brother, Thomas TRENDALL,  late of Chipping Norton in Oxfordshire.  In particular he mentions a legacy received from his late brother in the sum of £50.  This useful reference enables us to trace Thomas and in doing so to gain an understanding (or at least a glimpse) of the wider family.  He may also help answer the question of when this part of the TRENDALL family moved to London.

There have been TRENDALLS living in London since at least the seventeenth century but what we do not yet know is if they were part of the wider extended family of which we are a part.  In the case of Joseph the records first place him in the capital renting property in 1804.  But from his Will we know that his brother was ‘late of Chipping Norton’.  This is a possible clue as to the origins of the family.  But Thomas probably did have business interests in London.  The house in which Joseph died was held by lease by Thomas.  Nothing in my recent research has thrown much light on why Thomas would have leased these properties away from home.  From Joseph’s Will it is clear that both were interested in property in addition to their principal trades.

Chipping Norton is in north east of Oxfordshire.  This is not a huge county and has seen significant boundary changes over the last hundred years with some villages ‘moving’ between Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire.  The surname TRENDALL and it variants is relatively common in the area and has been so for a very long time.  There is even a small area of woodland known as TRENDELL’S WOOD in the parish of Stokenchurch, not far from the M40.  The use of an ‘A’ or an ‘E’ in TRENDALL/TRENDELL is almost interchangeable throughout this period.  As late as 1878 when  Joseph’s son Thomas died an ‘E’ is used in the register of deaths despite a lifetime of using the spelling which we have come to accept as standard.  The memorial card produced for his funeral uses an ‘A’.

The detail in Joseph’s Will has allowed us to trace Thomas’s Will with a very high degree of confidence that we have got the right man despite the popularity of the Christian name.   Thomas made his Will in 1827 with a codicil in 1832.  We can learn a great deal from these documents including:

 

1.       He was married to Deborah TRENDALL

2.       He had brothers: Joseph, William, Ephraim and James.  The latter was dead by the time the Will was written in 1827.

3.       He had a sister who is unnamed in the Will.  In fact it looks as if a space has been left blank for the sister’s name.  The sister may well have been dead by 1827 but mention is made of her son; Thomas SEARS.

4.       He makes provision for the family of his late brother James.

5.       He makes extensive provision for his wife but does not mention any children of the marriage.

6.       Mention is made of a pub – the Blue Anchor – in Chipping Norton but by the time of the codicil he is living in Eynsham (now a suburb of Oxford).   

7.       There is no mention of his leasehold property held of the Haberdashers Company and occupied by Joseph.

From this information we have discovered more about Thomas.  I will write further details on this shortly but it would seem that he was a well off tradesman.   He appeared as a voter until the time of his death – at this time there were only around 200,000 voters out of a population of 2.6M.  However some of his dealings appear confused and his widow was left to clarify the ownership of some parcels of land after his death.

In November 1828 an advertisement appeared in the Oxford Journal: 

To be let, and may be entered upon immediately, - a house and premises, situated in Charlbury, Oxon, latterly occupied as an old-established Carpenter’s shop, with stabling &c suitable for any business requiring room.  For further particulars apply to Mr Thomas Trendell, Anchor Inn, Chipping Norton; if by letter, post paid”. 

He died on 05 November 1832 and was buried in the church yard at Cogges – a small village near Eynsham.  He had a fine table tomb erected that still stands.  His Will was proved at Oxford by his wife on 09 March 1833 and was confirmed as being of less than £800 in value.

Thomas’s widow, Deborah lived for another eleven years and died 03 April 1843 aged 62 years and was buried in the same grave.  Her death certificate records that she died of Asthma.  In her Will she addressed the problems caused by the codicil to Thomas’s Will and made provision for his legacies to be honoured.  She also left money and property to other family members including her brother Robert Allsop.  When proved her Will was confirmed as being worth less than £1500.

James TRENDALL made a Will on 22 April 1820.  This shows that he, like his brother Joseph, was a Baker and that he was of Lewknor in Oxfordshire.  He left freehold and copyhold property for the benefit of his wife and his daughters Elizabeth and Mary.    He also had three sons, James, Joseph and George.  He was 57 when he died and had married Mary BENNELL in 1795.  As mentioned above Thomas made provision in his Will for James’s family.

It is possible that James was ill by the time he made his Will as he lived for only a few further months dying in August aged 57.

James was buried in Stokenchurch Oxfordshire on 24 August 1820.  Lewknor and Stokenchurch are only a couple of miles apart.   His Will was proved at Oxford on 08 October 1821 and was valued at less than £200.

By co-incidence another James TRENDELL died a few months later in Shoreditch, London and was buried in Bunhill Row Burial Ground.  A few years later Joseph would live in Shoreditch and the land leased by Thomas is between Shoreditch and Bunhill Row.  It is possible that this James was also part of the wider family but the link, if there is one, is at present  unknown.

Mary (James’s widow) lived until 1855 when she died aged 80 and was also buried in Stokenchurch.   In the 1851 census she was living with some of her children.  At the age of 76 her occupation is given as ‘Baker’ suggesting that she worked in the family business with her husband, or took it up on his death.

There is more research to be done to trace the family business but we know from the Registers of Duties Paid for Apprentices Indentures that James had a number of apprentices whilst working in Stokenchurch, this is perhaps suggestive of a successful business.

Of Ephraim and William and the sister with no name I cannot, at the time of writing, find any further trace.  Thomas mentions them in his Will of 1827 and their legacies are mentioned in the Will of his Widow Deborah in 1842 but by this time the document speaks mainly of the issue of James TRENDELL.

The unnamed sister had a son, Thomas SEARS.   The tone of Thomas’s Will suggests that his sister was dead by 1827 but there is no mention of her husband.  This is an obvious line for further research (for example there is a Thomas SEARS who died in 1861 in Stokenchurch).

The fact that at least two of Joseph’s siblings were based in Oxfordshire may demonstrate that he was the person that brought our branches of the family to London at around the turn of the century but it may well be that other parts of the family had already migrated the few miles from rural Oxfordshire to the industrial sprawl of the Metropolis.

The parish registers of Radnage (which lies a couples of miles to the west of Stokenchurch and is now just over the county border into Buckinghamshire) contain a number of entries that could record the birth of Joseph and Thomas.  For Joseph there are two entries, one written on a flyleaf of the register and then, possibly copied in:

This entry occurs in April 1769.  This would match with his death at the age 68 in  1838.

In the same register there is an entry in 1767 for the baptism of Thomas born of the same parents as Joseph (William and Anne).

Assuming that this child was baptised shortly after birth there arises a mismatch with the fact that at the time of his death in 1832 Thomas was described as being of 60 years of age.  This would give him a date of birth of 1772, creating a five year gap. 

There are also entries for the baptisms of an Anne and a Ruth of the same parents.  Banns and the marriage are also recorded for William and Anne in 1767.  Clearly there is much to be done to firm up the nature and relevance of these relationships.

 

Philip Trendall

October 2025

 

This is an update to the note originally prepared 17 November 2013

Frederick TRENDALL (1890-1940): A New Record

 

Sometimes a very short document can carry a heavy weight.  During a recent visit to the National Archives (TNA) I noticed that there was a new catalogue entry for my Grandfather, Frederick TRENDALL (1890-1940), in the WO 416 series.  This series contains the Prisoner of War index cards created by the Germans during the Second World War.  They were seized at the end of the war and are now, after many years, are available to view.

Frederick TRENDALL never was a POW but the cards were also used to record the details of deceased soldiers when there was any identification.  The cards can only be viewed under supervision.  I went into the ‘invigilated’ room at the TNA and the record card was inside an envelope inside a plastic box.  It seemed strange to be handling a document that had been filled up by a German clerk/soldier in May 1940.

The record does not add much to what is already known.  It records his name and rank, gives the location of his burial and suggests that the burial was overseen by a British Army padre (presumably a POW) although the German translation is approximate.  The card is stamped with a black cross to indicate that the subject is deceased.  His grave is now marked by a Commonwealth War Graves headstone in Calais South Cemetery.  I visited the cemetery about 30 years ago – I will try and go again soon.

War is a bureaucratic process but behind every document there was a real person and a real family.

 

Philip Trendall

August 2025

 

Note:  Document Reference:  The National Archives:  WO 416 366/141 viewed and copied 21 August 2025

Fictional Trendalls

 

It is not often that one comes across our surname (TRENDALL) in works of fiction.  I recently finished a newly published novel: The Reservoir of Greed (Sound of Jealousy 2) by Rod LEWIS that features a baddie called Steve TRENDALL.  An unattractive character who spies for a foreign state.  It can’t be easy for authors to think of names for their characters but as I know the author it is at least clear where he got the idea from!

More of a mystery are the works of William Le QUEUX.  He was writing at the beginning of the 20^th century and, for a while,  was a very popular author of spy and detective fiction.  His most famous book: The Invasion of 1910, With A Full Account of the Siege of London, was based on the idea of a German invasion of the UK that had been enabled by the work of the Kaiser’s spies.    It was published in 1906 and was one of the causes of the wave of the ‘spy mania’ that swept the country in the years before 1914.

Le QUEUX was not a very talented writer.  His plots are predictable and his dialogue wooden.  His habit of employing an exclamation mark several times on every page makes one question what his agent and editor were contributing to the production of his books.

Le Queux wrote the Doctor of Pimlico (Being the Disclosure of a Great Crime) just after the First World War.  It is the story of an evil doctor who blackmails a retired General and his daughter whilst running an international gang of criminals.  He is thwarted by the hero of book, a novelist and an archetype of the English hero (square jawed etc).  This chap has, for reasons that are not well explained, at least two surnames and appears to work closely with Scotland Yard and other law enforcement agencies.  His contact at the Yard is Herbert TRENDALL.

TRENDALL is described thus:

“He was a marvellously alert man, an unusually good linguist, and a cosmopolitan to his finger-tips. He had been a detective-sergeant in the T Division of Metropolitan Police for years before his appointment as director of that section. He knew more of the criminal undercurrents on the Continent than any living Englishman, and it was he who furnished accurate information to the Surete in Paris concerning the great Humbert swindle” (P235).

He has done well as a Detective Sergeant as he has a secretary, a large department and an office that is described as:

“the big, airy, official-looking room, the two long windows of which looked out over Westminster Bridge” (p229)

TRENDALL’s job is not defined although there are hints that he does something secret.  However at the end of the book when he has just interviewed the evil doctor in Chelmsford prison he is described as being the Chief of the Criminal Investigation Department.

We can’t know where Le QUEUX got the name Herbert TRENDALL.  There were a few people in circulation with that name at the time he was writing The Doctor of Pimlico.  Of course he could have made it up by combining a popular first name with a surname he had come across in his daily business.  My guess is that he had heard of Herbert TRENDALL/TRENDELL a senior official in the Lord Chamberlain’s Office who was in charge of the rules around the dress to be worn at the Royal court.  He had given evidence at the trial of a suffragette who had been arrested at the Tower of London and his name (using various spellings) was, for a while, all over the newspapers.

Le QUEUX’s novel is not entirely without merit.  He manages to slip in a heavy but very thinly veiled criticism of Lloyd George’s habit of selling honours.

There must be other examples of the use of our family name in fiction.  Any suggestions?

 

Philip Trendall

Bramfield

August 2025

 

Notes

Rod Lewis’s Book is available on Amazon: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Sound-Jealousy-Reservoir-Greed-ebook/dp/B0FD8Z32LM/ref=sr_1_1?crid=1TET54UEKYR9H&dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.E4eGHjp25-ubPoTyZFkZiN3801qbMkryHsXHu7nYRwZRmeRhheV42uaQ8Z1IggS-7XpMCPbKPFJvq4lCoIzTiAzea6puRXU95Mwbf8eYe-aqzC9lMBcT29eiqrAY2goJQUqB5sNc_RcYS0srNdOdAE7eAugYkDOadKK_bP8f3SxessEYVaoSopAXApJuoJlq-HvVrzZv2zW0RnTzHVOj2YQoaxhQSxfiy6Qw1ncLPos.8MbqMJ7Kr54czjBNNEzd1WYZSEMINbuYdcbmAjlj2sY&dib_tag=se&keywords=rod+lewis&qid=1755451452&sprefix=rod+lewis%2Caps%2C113&sr=8-1

Most of Le QUEUX’s works can be found on the internet archive:

https://archive.org/details/doctorofpimlicob00lequiala/doctorofpimlicob00lequiala/mode/2up

 

 

 

 

 

'POP’ SCOTT – A COUNTRY SERVED

 

George SCOTT 1906-1971

I remember my Grandfather, George SCOTT (1906-1971) for many reasons.  He was a jovial sort of chap who liked a cigarette and a drink.  He spoke with a strong Glasgow accent despite having lived in London for many years.  I always knew him as ‘POP’.  He was a generous Grandfather even though he was not wealthy – indeed his generosity was the source of several problems.

I knew he was my Grandfather – the father of my Mother (Jean Duncan McGAVIN/SCOTT/PALMER/TRENDALL1924-1982), but if a future generation follows the paper trail he would not appear as according to my Mother’s birth certificate she was the daughter of John Simpson McGAVIN (1895-1940), the first husband of my Grandmother – Helen Kirk McBeth DUNCAN (Nellie) (1896-1971).  Everybody knew that George SCOTT was her biological Father – and much family pain ensued.  By 1925 George SCOTT and Nellie McGAVIN (as she was at the time) were living together.  They could not marry until the John McGAVIN died, which he did in 1940.  By that time George and Nellie had two more children: George SCOTT (1928-2009) and Andrew Nicol SCOTT (1931-1931).  Andrew was given the middle name NICOL after George SCOTT’s (B1906) Mother.  He was severely disabled and lived only a few months.  I recall my Mother describing how shocked she was when she saw the deformities that her brother was born with.  She said that he was only expected to live a few hours and she also recounted how caring her parents were with him.

George SCOTT (B1906) worked as a labourer, a miner and as a ship’s steward/cook (including on board the famous Athenia which was the first British ship sunk, with a great loss of life by a German U Boat).  In later life and for many years he worked at the London Hospital as a porter.  I don’t recall much being mentioned about his service the Second World War.  There was a family story about him singing ‘We’ll Meet Again’ when being waved off at Glasgow Central Station and another tale that he was always slightly relieved at the end of his leave from the army to get away from the bombing in London.  He used to say with a smile that he was safer in the army!

I recently tracked down a copy of his army record via a Freedom of Information Request to the National Archives.  The record added to my knowledge of a man I only knew when I was a child. 

He enlisted within six weeks of the start of the war.  He chose the army rather than the navy despite (or perhaps because of) his experience of passenger ships. Throughout his service he described his nationality as English.  This is common in records of the time when ‘English’ and ‘British’ were used interchangeably.  Those were the days when the Scottish Nationalists were seen as a dangerous, anti war, fringe group.  He joined in Glasgow as a single man (no mention of living with Nellie) but other records before they were married in 1941 do describe her as his wife.  He was noted as being as 5’7 ½ tall, with hazel eyes and a fresh complexion.  I recall that he had a tattoo on his arm and this is described in his papers as being of two clasped hands.  A common design among sailors.  He joined the Pioneer Corp as a labourer.  Within a month of joining up he was sent to France with the British Expeditionary Force (BEF).  He remained there until the final evacuations from the continent in June 1940.  As a member of the pioneer corps it is likely that he saw a considerable amount of action.  He was attached to various regiments including the Middlesex Regiment, RAOC and the Royal Fusiliers.  Later he transferred to the Royal Artillery.  During his time in the army ‘at home’ he served at various locations.  A week after D Day he was back in Europe where he remained until September.  He was demobbed in November 1944 and returned to his family, who were by this time living at 89 Cambridge Heath Road London – a flat I well remember.

He was a well behaved soldier for the most part with only minor deviations from the straight and narrow.  

During his first stint in France he would have served in proximity to both my Father (Frederick Alfred TRENDALL 1914-1983) and to my other Grandfather (Frederick TRENDALL 1890-1940).  But of course he would not have known them as my Mother did not meet my Father for another decade and a half.

On returning to the UK in 1944 his commanding officer in the 496^th Field Battery, Royal Artillery wrote:

“This soldier served throughout the campaign in NW Europe and was first class.  He is very loyal, reliable and willing, and cheerful in difficult circumstances.  He always did his job efficiently and conscientiously, and no hardship or difficulty ever got him down”

Not a bad set of comments and the description reminds me of the man I briefly knew.

George SCOTT - Medal Application Card 1956?

In many ways George SCOTT’s record of service was very similar to that of many other men who found themselves in extraordinary circumstances.  Together with the men and women who served on the Home Front it was typical of a generation that has now nearly passed.  What a generation! when ordinary people did amazing things.  A generation that bequeathed to us a life of peace and comfort.  A life they could only have dreamt off.  We must not forget our debt to those that endured so much for our freedom.

 

Philip Trendall

August 2025

 

A Super Family Photo

 

Some years ago George BARKER was interviewed for a great piece on the on the campaign to save the Marquis of Lansdowne.  I re read it recently and noticed that it included a great photograph of my 'half' siblings' with their 'half siblings' - the latter of course not being (technically) relatives of mine.  It reminds me of how families are a lot more than lines on a chart and that many families are really quite complicated!  It is alway demonstrates the importance of 'place'.  This pub was common to all of us having been run by the Barkers/Wilsons and Trendalls for over half a century.

This photograph was taken around 1957 in the back yard of the Marquis of Lansdowne 32 Cremer Street London E2.

Does anybody remember it being taken?  Who took it?  Was it a special occasion?  

From Left to Right:  Maureen TRENDALL, Frederick (Freddy) TRENDALL, Eileen BARKER, Christine TRENDALL and George BARKER.  The wall was the large (and eventually unsafe) boundary wall of the Marquis of Lansdowne - note the Charrington beer crates on the left

Blogpost May 2025