Obituaries

Brief notes about some of the people who are buried or have memorials in the Higher Cemetery, listed alphabetically by surname:   

ABRAHAM, MYLES  1887-1966 

Myles Abraham was born in Ireland but ended his days in Exeter and is buried in the Higher Cemetery. He worked as a solicitor’s clerk and also as a civil servant, playing rugby with his brother Robert for the Civil Service Team. In his twenties he played rugby for Leinster and Ireland being capped 5 times. In November 1912 he was in the Ireland side which played against South Africa at Lansdowne Road. He was also a boxer, the Irish Amateur Heavyweight Boxing Champion in 1913 and 1920. 

During the First World War he was a sergeant in the Royal Field Artillery. He was awarded the Distinguished Conduct Medal in 1917 and received the Military Medal as well as being mentioned in dispatches. He was recommended for the Victoria Cross although, due to the death of his major, the award was never made. After the war he played twice for Leicester Tigers and ended his rugby career with Ripon when he was in his early thirties. 

He married in 1921, back in Ireland. Eight of their fourteen children were already living in the Exeter area when Myles and his wife decided to retire here in 1953.

ALLEN, SAMUEL GEORGE  1891-1942 

Samuel Allen began work with the Southern Railway in 1908 aged 17. During the Second World War, he was an engine driver. He was single and living at 87 Bonhay Road, not far from Exeter St Davids Station. On a very dark November night Samuel drove a freight train from Barnstaple to Exeter Central Station where he finished his shift. He began to walk to the office to sign off when he was struck by a passenger train which was being shunted. The train was moving quietly at less than 4 mph and had no lights because of the wartime blackout. Samuel was run over by two coaches and both his legs were partially amputated. He was taken to the Royal Devon & Exeter hospital and given a blood transfusion but died the next morning, 26th November 1942. 

ANDREW, CLARA  1862-1939

Clara Andrew was the daughter of Thomas Andrew who was a Mayor of Exeter. She was educated at Maynard School. During the First World War Clara worked with Belgian refugees in Exeter and found homes for many of their orphans. Her work with orphans continued for the rest of her life. She was the founder and honorary director of the National Children’s Adoption Association which helped the passing of the Adoption of Children’s Act 1926. The first of the association’s children’s hostels was in London. Clara was working there when she had a stroke and died on 8th July 1939. A funeral service was held in Exeter Cathedral on 11th July. Among the mourners were Dorothy Holman (Clara’s niece and founder of Topsham Museum) and Dame Christabel Pankhurst, the famous suffragette. The service was followed by interment near the chapel in Higher Cemetery.

ARNELL, CHARLES JOHN  1850-1938

C.J.Arnell came to my attention because of the unusual inscription on his gravestone ‘Poet’, but there was more to him than that. He was born at Carisbrooke on the Isle of Wight and was always proud to call himself a Vectensian. He went to school at Newport and later Windsor. On leaving school he entered a bank, but at the age of 22 he took over the running of his father’s flour mill in partnership with his brother. He retired in 1905 and went to live in East Sheen, where he indulged in his passion for poetry. In 1919 however he came to live at Exmouth although there is a suggestion that he may have spent some time at Broadclyst.

He wrote poetry and published articles and books including ‘Random Rhymes of a Vectensian’ (1914) and ‘On Divers Strings’ (1927). I would describe his style as Betjemanesque. He founded a magazine called ‘Decachord’ and he is also credited with writing the lyric of a song called ‘Helen’ which was made popular by the Australian bass Peter Dawson. He died at 18 Church Terrace in Exeter, which is why he is buried here, but his heart was always where he was born.

‘Isle of beauty, hail to thee!

Empress of the Southern sea;

Solent queen! Thy crown of charms

Fortune lend protecting arms;

Home of my nativity,

Isle of beauty, hail to thee!’

ASHWORTH, EDWARD 1814-1896

The architect Edward Ashworth died on 8th March 1896 aged 81. He lived in Dix’s Field in Exeter and he had an enormous influence on church architecture all over Devon and beyond. Pevsner lists at least forty churches in this county that he worked on, either as new build or more frequently as restoration and alteration. It has to be said that some of the renovation done in the 19th century was arguably over-zealous and much medieval woodwork such as rood screens and bench ends was removed when it could have been preserved, but it was the prevailing fashion to modernise. Pevsner claimed he was too fond of stripping off plaster, much of which would have had medieval paintings. Ashworth came of farming stock and was born at Colleton near Chulmleigh, but he quickly decided that farming was not for him and he was articled to Robert Cornish in Exeter before going to London to work for Charles Fowler. In 1842 he went to New Zealand and then Hong Kong from 1844-45. He returned to Exeter in 1846 where he spent the next fifty years of his life. He designed the large Gothic church of St Mary Major in the Close near the Cathedral in 1864 but that was demolished in 1971. The little church of All Saints at Whipton was by him and of course the lodge and two chapels in the Higher Cemetery near where he is interred. He was also an accomplished watercolourist and his paintings are an invaluable source of information about old Exeter pre-blitz. 

ATHERTON, CHARLES ISAAC  1839 - 1907

Charles Isaac Atherton MA was born on 18th July 1839 at Prescot, Lancashire, and became Exeter Cathedral Canon and Treasurer. He was also a Warden of the Society of Mission Clergy. In the 19th century the treasurer’s house was 10 Cathedral Close which in modern times became the residence of the Dean of the cathedral. He died on 1st October 1907 and is buried in the Higher Cemetery, beneath a Celtic cross, with his wife Selina who died in 1922. 

His memorial plaque in Exeter Cathedral was dedicated by his friends and fellow workers.

BALL, GEORGE ERIC  1919-1946

G.E.Ball came from Tankerton in Kent. He started his flying training in 1937 and joined 19 squadron at Duxford in February 1938. He shot down 2 German aircraft and was wounded himself before joining 242 squadron on 24th June 1940 as ‘A’ Flight Commander under Squadron Leader Douglas Bader. He continued to destroy enemy aircraft and was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross (DFC).  In 1941 he joined 73 Sqn in the Western Desert but was forced to land in a sandstorm and was taken prisoner. He was released at the end of the war and took command of 222 Sqn at Fairwood Common. On 1st February 1946 he was practising aerobatics in a Meteor when he failed to recover from a spiral dive and crashed near Fairmile. He is buried in the Higher Cemetery ZK130.

BARNES, HILDA JANE MILLICENT 1901-1917

On Friday evening, 6th July 1917, Hilda had a date with a soldier. They had been out together a couple of times before and this evening they went for a walk. Hilda left home in St James’s at 8.15pm to meet Private Edward Woodward but had not returned by late evening. At 3.20 the next morning, having been alerted by a GWR employee, a policeman found Hilda’s body cut in two on the railway line at Stoke Canon. Private Woodward was the last person known to have seen Hilda alive and he suggested that she had committed suicide because she was afraid to face her father after being out late. He said that he had parted company with Hilda at Stoke Canon because she did not want to go home. Although Hilda’s mother made certain allegations at the inquest as to the manner of her daughter’s death the inquest jury returned an open verdict because of the lack of evidence. The coroner criticised Woodward for failing to protect Hilda and for abandoning her. Hilda Barnes was 16 years old. Edward Woodward was a 40-year-old married man. The funeral took place at the Higher Cemetery on the following Wednesday.

BARNEY, THOMAS  1870-1947

Father Thomas Barney was priest of the Church of the Sacred Heart in South Street, for 28 years. He died in 1947 and was buried in the grounds of the Church of St Thomas of Canterbury, Dunsford Hill, according to his last request. When the church was sold for development Father Barney was re-interred in the Higher Cemetery but his headstone was kept in storage until 2016 when it was erected at the new grave. On the evening of 4th May 2017 Father John of the Church of the Sacred Heart performed a blessing of the grave.

BASTARD, SEGAR  c1817-1902

Segar Bastard joined the family business of wholesale linen drapers and hop merchants in Exeter, which existed until 1870.

In 1844 he married Mary Jane Petherick and lived at 2 Higher Terrace, Heavitree, later moving to 10 St James’ Street and finally Maryland in Barnfield, Exeter. He became a director of the St Anne’s Well Brewery Company and was a director of the Exeter Gas Light and Coke Company for 40 years. Segar’s nephew, Segar Richard Bastard, played cricket for Essex and the MCC, played football for England once, against Scotland, and was an international football referee.

Mary Jane died in 1894. Segar died 8 years later on 2nd January 1902 leaving £18347 in his will. They are buried in the family plot, section D, No.92 behind the dissenters’ chapel in the Higher Cemetery.

BELLERBY, JAMES  1815-1870 

James Bellerby began his working life as a printer in his home city of York. He later worked in Bath and Bristol as a reporter and became chief reporter for the Bristol Mirror.  In 1842 he married Catharine Lawrence of Bath and together they had nine children.

In 1848 he moved to Exeter and was the editor of Trewman’s Exeter Flying Post. He bought the business from Robert James Trewman ten years later. The paper called itself the oldest and most extensively circulated Conservative newspaper in the West of England and was published weekly between 1763 and 1917. Its offices were at 2 Little Queen Street in 1870.

James was a freemason, Past Commander of Templars. He died at home, Park Villa, Mount Radford, on 29th April 1870 and his funeral in the Higher Cemetery took place on 4th May.

 BENNETT, LESLIE CHARLES  1921-1940

The youngest son of Henry and Lily Bennett of Exeter, Leslie was a Wireless Operator Air Gunner in 204 squadron of the Royal Air Force Coastal Command. In April 1940 the squadron moved to Sullom Voe in the Shetlands for patrols off Norway. Leslie was one of a crew of 12 who took off in a Sunderland flying boat for a reconnaissance trip to the Trondheim area on 21st July 1940, Leslie’s 19th birthday. The aircraft was shot down by a German ace in a Messerschmitt Me109E near Linaero. All the Sunderland’s crew were killed. Leslie is mentioned on his parents’ grave near the Hamlin Lane entrance to the Higher Cemetery (ZP40) and on the Runnymede Memorial in Surrey which commemorates commonwealth airmen and women who have no known grave.   

BERTHIER, NICOLA HENRY   c1854-1916

Staff Serjeant (Acting) Nicola Henry Berthier served in the Forage Department of the Army Service Corps. He died on 15th October 1916, aged 62, and was buried in the Higher Cemetery. His home address was 40, St. James Square, Holland Park, London and he was incorrectly commemorated on the Brookwood 1914-1918 memorial. When the Commonwealth War Graves Commission realised that he was actually buried in Exeter they decided that his grave should be marked with a CWGC headstone. The exact site of his grave is not known but the cemetery records show it as Section D, Division 72.

In 2017 the CWGC produced a special memorial headstone to commemorate Nicola Berthier, with the inscription ‘Buried elsewhere in this cemetery’. As it is not possible to mark his actual grave the headstone was installed near other CWGC graves of the First World War, east of the Garden of Remembrance.

The role of the Forage Department was to provide supplies of fodder for army horses. British imperial forces on the western front needed 32 million pounds of forage each month in 1918.

BIRKMYER, JAMES BRUCE  1834-1899

James Bruce Birkmyer was born in Liverpool and moved to Exeter, becoming the head of the School of Art, aged 26.  One of his pupils there was John Shapland who eventually succeeded him as principal of the school and, like James, is buried in the Higher Cemetery. James also served as head of Exmouth Art School and taught drawing at Exeter Grammar School. His chief delight was painting landscapes, mostly of Devon, and he exhibited his work at the Royal Academy. He was awarded a diploma from the Royal College of Art at the end of his career. Each of his four daughters studied art, one of them taking over from James as head of Exmouth Art School. James and his wife also had one son. They lived at 26 St Leonard’s Road. In 1862, James was involved in the preliminary discussions for the proposed Royal Albert Memorial Museum which is now home to two of his paintings; When the Tide is Low - Maer Rocks, Exmouth and Landscape with Gate and Buildings. James Bruce Birkmyer died on 4th February 1899.

BOND, FRANCIS GODOLPHIN  1765-1839

F.G.Bond had a distinguished career in the Royal Navy at the turn of the 18th and 19th centuries. He died on 26th October 1839, which is of course 27 years before the Higher Cemetery was dedicated and 32 years before the St Leonards section was added, where he now lies. The reason for this is that he was first laid to rest in a vault at Holy Trinity Church in South Street, but in 1988 that was deconsecrated and became the White Ensign Club. The good Admiral was disinterred and as far as can be ascertained reburied unceremoniously here. We are authoritatively informed by one of the cemetery staff that he still had his sword.

Bond entered the Navy at the tender age of 8 as servant to the Captain of the Monmouth and three other ships until achieving the status of Midshipman in 1779 again on several vessels and on one of them HMS Crescent he was disfigured by an explosion on a captured prize. He saw action off Gibraltar and became a lieutenant in 1782. In 1791 he was appointed First Lieutenant on the Providence commanded by his uncle Captain William Bligh, the same position held by Fletcher Christian on the ill-fated Bounty in 1787. Bligh succeeded in the second attempt to convey breadfruit from Tahiti to the West Indies to feed the slaves on the Tobacco plantations; the picture on the left shows collected breadfruit trees being transplanted. On that voyage Bond collected various ethnic artefacts which he later presented to the Devon and Exeter Institution in Cathedral Close and which are now in RAMM. Following that voyage he served on Active and was ship wrecked on the island of Anticosti in Canada. His final ship which he commanded was the Netley, a fast schooner of 16 guns, which patrolled the coasts of France, Spain and Portugal, and he had considerable success capturing 47 enemy ships. During this time he met his future wife, Sophia Snow from Oporto, whom he married in 1801.

He returned to England and although he did not go to sea again, he became Post Captain in 1802 and Rear Admiral in 1837 shortly before he died. He remained active and joined the Sea Fencibles in 1803. This body was formed to protect the coastline of Britain from invasion; a very real possibility in Napoleonic times.

Footnote:- There is an interesting link with the Devon parson and writer the Revd Sabine Baring Gould of Lewtrenchard, as Bond was his maternal grandfather.

BOUNDY, KATE  1865-1913 

Miss Kate Boundy of Heavitree Road, was a successful composer of organ and choral music and an Associate of the Royal Academy of Music. When she was 12 years old she won a scholarship at the Exeter Episcopal Middle School for Girls. As a 21year old pupil at the Royal College of Music she wrote an anthem ‘O Lord of Hosts’ which was sung in Westminster Abbey by the abbey choir. The anthem was also sung in Exeter Cathedral eight months later. Her ‘Book of Four Songs’ was published in 1888 and in 1896 she composed a special musical supplement to the ‘School Music Review’ monthly magazine. In the following year some of her music was published in ‘The Village Organist’. Her song ‘Down in a Green and Shady Bed’ was used as a test piece in school music competitions around the UK. Kate, described as a very little lady, was an invalid for many years and needed a bath chair to get about. In August 1913 Kate visited Abergavenny because the Welsh National Eisteddfod was being held there and she was able to stay at her brother’s house in the town. While there she became ill and died on 7th August 1913. Her body was brought back to Exeter by train and she was buried in the Higher Cemetery. She was unmarried and left everything to her brother and sister. Some of Kate Boundy’s music can be heard on YouTube at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4tPKLWZZdR4

 BOWRING, DEBORAH  1816-1902

Deborah Castle was born at Clifton, one of 14 children. She lived with her parents caring for them in their old age. She married Sir John Bowring in 1860, four years after the death of her mother. Sir John was 20 years her senior and his first wife had only been dead for 2 years. His family disapproved of the wedding and only one family member attended the wedding although there were many from the bride’s family.

Deborah Bowring became one of the early suffragists. At an 1869 meeting of the Social Science Association Deborah debated with her friend Mary Carpenter whether women should simply take a greater public part in traditional feminine philanthropic roles or, as Deborah proposed, campaign for greater rights. Deborah won the debate. In 1871 she became vice-president of the Bristol & West of England Society for Women’s Suffrage and remained so until she died at home, 17 Baring Crescent, on 28th July 1902. She was buried with her husband, who had died 30 years previously, in the Higher Cemetery on what would have been her 86th birthday.

Deborah had been Hon Sec of the Exeter Ladies branch of the RSPCA and newspaper reports of her funeral mentioned a wreath from their president. There was no mention of the campaign for women’s suffrage. 

BOWRING, JOHN  1792–1872

Sir John was an English political economist, traveller and writer with an extraordinary gift for languages. Three years after becoming the MP for Bolton he was sent to Hong Kong as governor. He was also the writer of many poems and hymns, one of which is inscribed around his grave. There is a bust of Sir John Bowring in the Devon and Exeter Institution.

BOYDE, WILLIAM  1791-1868 

Regimental Sergeant Major of the Royal First Devon Yeomanry Cavalry, William Boyde was born at Sligo in Ireland. At the age of 16 he joined the 5th Dragoon Guards and rose to the rank of Regimental Sergeant Major. He became a lifelong friend of Thomas Plunkett, another Irishman of the Dragoon Guards. They were both at the Battle of Toulouse in 1814 at the close of the Peninsular War and they had a tradition of eating Christmas dinner together until William’s last Christmas in 1867. In 1837 William Boyde succeeded Sergeant Major Plunkett as RSM in the Royal First Devon Yeomanry Cavalry at Exeter and stayed in that post for 30 years. The yeomanry performed civil policing duties and the last time that they were called out was in 1867 at Exeter because of the Devon food riots. This was the year that William resigned. He died at home 14 Lower Eaton Place, Heavitree Road on 2nd March 1868. He and Thomas Plunkett are both buried in the Higher Cemetery.        

 BROWN, WALTER  1868-1919

Walter Browne was born near Copplestone and attended Devon County School at West Buckland. He lived in Exeter for forty years from the age of ten. His home was in Elm Grove Road until he moved to ‘Newstead’ in Matford Avenue only a few days before he died.

Having been apprenticed to wholesale woollen merchants Yolland, Husson & Birkett he went onto become a senior partner of Lear, Browne & Co in the same business. From 1908 he was a Conservative councillor for St Leonards, and a member of the Watch, Finance and City Extension Adjustment committees. He was deputy mayor under Mr Kendal-King in 1913-14, a member of Tucker’s Hall Incorporation, Vice-Chairman of Exeter Working Men’s Conservative Union, governor of St. John’s School and a freemason. In 1916 he became a magistrate.

For the last three years of his life Walter suffered from kidney problems for which he had an operation in London although his health was always poor thereafter. He died on 26th August 1919 leaving a widow, two sons and two daughters. Shortly before his death he gave £1000 towards the Royal Devon & Exeter nurses home extension and £100 to the Exeter War Memorial Fund.

Walter Browne’s funeral service was held in St.Michael’s Church and his body was interred near the Higher Cemetery C of E chapel. A flag flew at half-mast over the Guildhall on the day. 

BURMAN-MORRALL, WILLIAM  1880-1939

William Burman-Morrall came to Exeter in October 1903 from the Royal College of Art in London. He was second master at the Royal Albert Memorial School of Art under John Shapland who he succeeded as principal in 1913. One of William’s pupils was John Angel who sculpted the Exeter War Memorial. Previous to his artistic career William had been interested in engineering and model making and pursued these interests until he died. Shortly before his death he had been designing a gas-proof room. William had been ill for six weeks before his death but tried to continue working until he was too ill to do so. He died on 27th December 1939. His funeral service was in St David’s Church followed by interment at the Higher Cemetery.

 CHENNEOUR, GEORGE  1868-1906

In the early 20th century American tourists would sail to Plymouth and catch the boat train to London Waterloo. This would be quicker than staying on the ship until it reached Southampton. In the early morning of 1st July 1906 William Robins was driving the boat train for the first time and was delayed at Plymouth because of the ship’s late arrival. He tried to make up time but was still running late when he reached Salisbury Station where he entered a 30mph bend at 50mph. The train tilted towards the outside of the bend, with the left side wheels leaving the track, and struck the milk train which was travelling in the opposite direction on the adjacent track. The boat train eventually stopped when it hit the ironwork of a bridge. Twenty-eight people died as a result of the accident, including the driver and fireman of the boat train and 5 members of the Sentell family of New York. There is a commemorative plaque in Salisbury Cathedral, on which the third person named is George Chenneour. He was the guard on the milk train and was killed instantly as the two trains collided. George was from Exeter.  Nearly 1000 people attended his funeral in the Higher Cemetery on 5th July 1906. Railway guards carried his coffin to the grave which is on the western edge of the C3-C7 plot. George’s widow is mentioned on his headstone. George had married Manuella Fanny Frost at St. Sidwell’s Church in 1892 and they had 2 children. Manuella died in 1953, aged 86. 

CHILES, KENNETH JAMES  1913-1942 

Kenneth Chiles died on the night of 5th - 6th July 1942 when HMS Niger mistook an iceberg for the North-Western cape of Iceland.

The son of Ernest and Dora Chiles of Monks Road, Exeter, attended Hele’s School where for six years he was the editor of the ‘Helean’. His experience led him to join the staff of the Western Morning News when he was 18. He became their Exmouth district representative and was initiated as a Freemason before being promoted to the sub-editorial staff at Plymouth five years later.

In 1940 he joined HMS Niger as a coder. HMS Niger was a minesweeper which accompanied a British convoy to Russia in May 1942 before being sent on special duties. On a foggy night in July 1942, mistaking an iceberg for land, HMS Niger led six merchant ships into a minefield in the Denmark Strait. Each of the ships struck a mine. One hundred and seventy-four men including Kenneth Chiles and 118 others of the 127 personnel aboard HMS Niger were killed as a result.

Kenneth James Chiles is remembered on the Chatham Naval Memorial and on his parents’ grave in Exeter’s Higher Cemetery.

CHORLEY, JULIA CORNELIUS  1855-1915

Julia Hill was born in Tavistock and moved to Exeter when she married Frank Chorley of Heavitree in 1881. They lived at 43 Haldon Road. After Germany’s invasion of Belgium in 1914 about 250,000 Belgians fled to Britain. In October 1914 the first of 500 Belgian refugees arrived in Exeter, the first provincial town or city to receive them during the war. The welcoming committee was based at 24 Southernhay West and Exeter was the dispersal centre for the south-west. Julia Chorley was involved with the organisation and helped to house refugees in premises which had been provided by the Nonconformist Council. Julia was on several local committees, was a temperance worker, Newtown Sunday School teacher, organist at the workhouse, member of the National Union of Women Workers and of the Women’s Liberal Association. She died on 25th January 1915. Her funeral in the Higher Cemetery followed a service at the Mint Wesleyan Chapel and was attended by a Belgian family who had travelled from North Devon to pay their respects. 

CLARKSON, WALTER  c1805-1867 

Captain Clarkson, Quarter-Master of the 15th Hussars, served with his regiment for thirty years, including a long period in India, before retiring to Longbrook Street, Exeter. He was well known in Exeter for his support of public charities.

He died, aged 62, on 12th November 1867 leaving a widow, one son and several daughters. On the day of the funeral the Exeter Rifle Corps mustered in Castle Street and marched to Longbrook Street where they presented arms as the coffin was carried out of the house. It was covered by a Union Jack and taken on a gun carriage drawn by six horses to the Higher Cemetery, accompanied by Yeomanry and Militia bands. The funeral was attended by over 3000 people. After the funeral ceremony, the Rifles fired three volleys over his grave.

COOKE, JOHN CUNNINGHAM  1851-1877

We have in the cemetery several memorials to shipwreck victims, but they were either lost at sea or buried elsewhere. Young Cooke however was lost closer to home than most, in Lyme Bay, 15 miles from Portland, but although he is mentioned on his father’s gravestone it seems likely that his body was never recovered and that he is not interred here. The memorial is on the south side of the chapel.

The circumstances were as follows. He was a passenger on an emigrant ship called the Avalanche, owned by the Shaw Savill line on passage to New Zealand. On the night of 11th September 1877 in murky weather the Avalanche was run down by an American clipper, the Forest, sailing in ballast to Sandy Hook, New York. The Avalanche was an iron sailing ship of 1210 tons (pictured) whereas the Forest was a wooden ship, also in sail, of 1488 tons. The former ship sank rapidly and all 63 of her passengers were lost together with 31 of her crew of 34, the three survivors managing to scramble on to the Forest. Their relief was short-lived, alas as that ship too foundered a couple of hours later, with the loss of 13 crew members. Nine survivors with the three from the Avalanche made it to safety on Chesil Beach, thanks to the skill of Portland fishermen in their ‘lerrets’, which were designed to land on the shifting pebbles of the beach. 

In 2000 the Express & Echo ran a feature about wrecks in Lyme Bay, a veritable graveyard for ships, listing those dived on. The Avalanche is shown but not the Forest. In the interests of historical accuracy a small party of Friends recently made a trip to Portland, where we paid a visit to the church of St Andrew, which was built in 1879 to commemorate the wreck, paid for by public subscription with contributions from Wanganui in New Zealand and Nova Scotia where the Forest was built. We learned a lot more about the tragedy and found some answers. The Forest we knew sank bows first with her bowsprit scraping the sea bed and her stern high out of the water, a hazard to shipping. The Admiralty sent HMS Defence to blow her up. After some abortive attempts she was towed down the Channel and literally blown to smithereens so that explains why she is not on the chart of wrecks.

The Avalanche has now been classed as a grave. A diving team found her in 1984 and recovered the anchor which now stands outside the church. There is also a case of artefacts mainly china with the crest of the shipping line, but the divers did not venture inside the hull. We did not find any more information about John Cooke and no grave. The body of one lady passenger was found at Dartmouth for instance. 

COOMBES, JOHN  c1887-1918

John was born at Rewe, the son of William and Elizabeth Coombes. He worked as a bricklayer until he enlisted in October 1915. He served in France with the Canadian Infantry 31st Battalion until being discharged due to illness in November 1917. 

John Coombes died at his parents’ house at Huxham, Stoke Canon on 7th April 1918. His body was taken to his sister’s house, 10 Albert Street, Exeter, before the funeral. The coffin was covered by a Union Jack and taken to the Higher Cemetery on a gun carriage drawn by six horses. It was preceded by a party from HM forces and mourners travelled in a carriage behind.

COURT, HELEN  c1892-1918

Helen was a dressmaker living with her parents and younger sister Hilda at 23 Roberts Road, Larkbeare, Exeter until 30th May 1918 when she enlisted with the Women’s Royal Naval Service. She served on shore as a steward. The WRNS motto was ‘Never At Sea’ and only male members of the Royal Navy went to sea prior to 1990. Helen died, following an illness, on 15th November 1918, four days after the First World War ended. She is buried near the Higher Cemetery Garden of Remembrance and is not mentioned on the WW1 memorial because the Exeter Town Council directive for the memorial did not include women.

COURT, HILDA 1904-1918

Buried in the same plot as her sister Helen, Hilda worked with the Royal Army Pay Corps. She died of an illness one month before Helen on 12th October. Hilda was aged 14 years and 9 months and was the youngest First World War casualty in the Higher Cemetery. She, like Helen, was not named on the war memorial.

COX, SIDNEY WILLIAM  1871-1947

Sidney Cox was the Salvation Army bandmaster at Exeter for over 50 years. In 1942 he was awarded the ‘Order of the Founder’ for his distinguished service, one of only 210 people in the world who have been given the award since its introduction in 1920.

DAW, WALTER  1905-1995

An Exonian, and son of a baker, Walter Daw was a councillor for 42 years, Mayor (twice), Sheriff and a Freeman of the City. He rode a sit-up-and-beg bike. He performed the Major General in the Pirates of Penzance with the Exeter Amateur Operatic Society. He worked for the Gaslight and Coke Co.

DEAN, CHARLES  c1868-1917

Charles Dean joined the Hampshire Regiment when he was 15 and spent nine years in India with them before transferring to the Devonshire Regiment. He was with the 2nd Battalion at the Relief of Ladysmith in 1900. In 1902 he became an instructor to the Devon Regiment and retired from the army two years later. He re-enlisted in 1914 and trained recruits.

During his career he was never wounded but was awarded the Indian Medal with Burma clasps, the South African Medal with clasps for Laings Nek, Relief of Ladysmith, Tugela Heights, Transvaal & Orange Free State, the King’s S.A. Medal and the Long Service and Good Conduct Medal.

Charles Dean died of illness on 14th October 1917, at No.3 Auxiliary Hospital (VAD), Heavitree Hill, leaving a widow, three sons and a daughter. He is buried in the WWI section of the Higher Cemetery.

DOMINY, JOHN  1816-1891 

John Dominy died on 12th February 1891 and is buried in the Higher Cemetery.

He was born in Gittisham and enjoyed a long career in horticulture. He started out at the Exeter nursery of Lucombe, Pince and Co. but he was head-hunted by the rival Exeter firm of Veitch and Son where he became the Head Hybridist, specialising in orchids, as well as rhododendrons, camellias, fuschias and dahlias. He is credited with creating the world’s first hybrid orchid (the horticultural ‘Holy Grail’) in 1854, called Calanthe x Dominii, seen by some as tampering with nature. He also hybridised pitcher plants (Nepenthe) encouraged by an Exeter surgeon called Dr John Harris. He moved to the firm’s Chelsea nurseries in 1864 and was presented with a piece of silver plate by the Exeter Horticultural Society.

He is buried with his wife Susan who died 2 weeks after him. Their gravestone is inscribed “Lovely and pleasant in their lives, and in death they were not divided”.

DOWN, JOHN  c1858-1918

John Down was employed by the London and South West Railway Company for 18 years as a mason. When he was 33 he assisted two police officers who were being ‘badly handled’ and was rewarded for his actions with an inscribed 8-day clock and a cheque for £5. In later years John lived at 28 Radford Road and kept an allotment which he would reach by means of a short cut through the Queen Street railway tunnel. On 25th May 1918 he was returning from his allotment along the railway line not knowing that, due to a derailment, single line operations meant that a train was approaching on the line which would normally have been safe. John was hit by the train and was taken to the Royal Devon & Exeter hospital where his right leg was amputated. He died in hospital on 3rd June and his funeral took place in the Higher Cemetery five days later.

DUKE, HENRY EDWARD  1855-1939  (Lord Merrivale)

Henry Duke was the son of a granite merchant who quarried granite at Merrivale. His first job was teaching but he soon moved into journalism. He was a reporter for the Western Morning News and became a member of the Press Gallery in the House of Commons. Best remembered for his work as a Divorce judge, he was called to the bar at Gray’s Inn in 1885 and made a QC in 1899. He gained a reputation for speedy decisions and judged 11000 divorces, taking an average of six minutes for undefended cases. From 1919 to 1933 he was President of the Probate, Divorce and Admiralty Division of the High Court of Justice. 

He also had a political career, serving as Conservative MP for Plymouth from 1900 to 1906 when he was defeated by the Liberal candidate. He stood successfully at Exeter in 1910 and was the MP there until 1918, serving as Chief Secretary for Ireland in Asquith’s cabinet from 1916 to 1918. Following the Battle of Jutland he awarded £22685 to Admirals Jellicoe and Beatty for their roles in the battle. Henry Duke was knighted in 1918 and was made a peer in 1925. He retired in 1936 and wrote ‘Marriage and Divorce’ in which he argued for reform of the divorce law.

‘Maryfield’ in Pennsylvania was Lord Merrivale’s Exeter home but his London home at Gray’s Inn was where he died on 20th May 1939. His body was brought to Exeter by train for burial in the Higher Cemetery, in the family grave near the chapel. His wife, Sarah whom he married in 1876 and had a son and daughter with, died in 1914 and is also buried in the family grave, as is his son-in-law Commander Frederick John Stockham Davis. The funeral service was held in Exeter Cathedral and a requiem mass for Lord Merrivale was said in the Church of St Alban the Martyn in Holborn. On the 6th June 1939 a memorial service was held in the Chapel of Gray’s Inn, London.The Dean of St Pauls officiated.

DUNN, ALBERT EDWARD  1864-1937                                                         

Albert Edward Dunn was born in Exeter, educated at Hallam School, Clevedon, and qualified as a solicitor. He was in the partnership of Dunn and Baker which had offices in Castle Street. 

A member of the Liberal Party, he served on Exeter City Council in St.Mary Major’s ward and later in St.David’s. He was instrumental in the annexation of St.Thomas which had previously been outside of the city. As Mayor of Exeter he helped place the Royal Albert Memorial College on a university basis and supported the plans to erect the statue of Sir Redvers Buller near Bury Meadow. After his time as mayor he acted as temporary Town Clerk.

He stood unsuccessfully against Sir Stafford Northcote for the Exeter parliamentary seat but after moving to Cornwall he was elected MP for Camborne.  After the First World War he joined the Labour Party but having lost two elections he retired from politics due to poor health.

Albert Edward Dunn died at Mousehole on 2nd May 1937 and his body was transported by road to Exeter for interment at the Higher Cemetery.

DYER, HENRY RYLAND  1887-1912

Henry Ryland Dyer was the senior Assistant Fourth Engineer on the ill-fated Titanic. His body was never recovered and he may have gone down with the ship. He was born in India on 21st December 1887, the son of QMS Henry Thomas Dyer serving with the Second Devons. His parents were living in Mount Pleasant Road when Henry Senior died in 1914. Henry Junior, known as Harry, went to the Manual School then in the museum building in Queen Street and was apprenticed to Willey & Co., but one of his main claims to fame was that he played full back for Exeter City Football Club on eleven occasions in the 1907/08 season and the club flew their flag at half-mast when they played Crystal Palace following the tragedy.

 ELCOCK, CHARLES  1848-1887

Charles Elcock was the musical director of Rowland’s “New York” Circus. The circus’s second season in Exeter commenced at the Victoria Hall on 31st January 1887. The show included equestrian performances, acrobats, gymnasts and clowns. Charles and his string band provided accompanying music.

The circus was so popular that the Exeter Tram Company ran a late omnibus to Heavitree after each evening performance.

Charles Elcock fell ill with an internal disease and died at his lodgings in Lawrence Place, High Street, on the 19th February 1887. He was married but is buried alone in the Higher Cemetery. The whole of his band attended the funeral with some of their number acting as bearers. At the evening performance in the Victoria Hall that day the music was provided by the band of the Devonshire Regiment.  

The Victoria Hall was in Queen Street, next to the Rougemont Hotel, but it burnt down in 1919. Its architect was Mr C.J.Phipps who also designed the Theatre Royal which burnt down in 1887. The site is now occupied by  Exeter College’s Victoria House.

ENDACOTT, SIDNEY  1873-1918

Sidney Endacott died on 3rd November 1918 at the tragically young age of 45. His gravestone has a depiction of an artist’s palette and brushes, as he was a local artist of some repute.

He was born in Ashburton on 14th June 1873 and won a scholarship to Blundell’s School in Tiverton in 1885. He went to work for Wippells in Exeter as a sculptor, woodcarver and stained glass artist. He worked for a time in the USA and some of his work can still be found in the States and Canada, notably, according to Christine Trigger, in the Castle in Lawrence, Kansas, which is on the Register of Historic Places and he also carved a crucifix over the Bishop’s throne in Newfoundland Cathedral.

He married Bertha Lily Haydon in 1903 and they had a son called Bernard. Sidney taught at Exeter School of Art and drew many pictures of Exeter scenes which were published as postcards by Worth’s Art Gallery, hand-tinted by the shop assistants. During World War 1 he drew diagrams for a technical manual of lorry parts.

FAULKNER, JANE  c1822-1872

In 1859 Henry Faulkner, a sculptor with 20 years’ experience, acquired the business of the late James Wilson of Magdalen Street. He went on to produce altars, fonts, monuments, tombs, and gravestones for 41 years. His first wife, Jane, suffered from a weak heart and dropped dead on 29th December 1872 while climbing the stairs at home. Henry married again, to Elizabeth with whom he had a son Reginald. The business folded when Henry died in 1900. Reginald was in the RAF and died in 1918. Elizabeth died in 1920.

The names of Henry, Reginald and Elizabeth were added to Jane’s memorial, which also marks the graves of Henry and Elizabeth. Reginald is buried in the First World War section.

FENDER, PERCY GEORGE HERBERT  1892-1985

Of all the ‘residents’ in our cemetery very few have made their mark on the international stage like P.G.H.Fender, who played test cricket for England on thirteen occasions as an all-rounder. He captained Surrey and many thought he ought to have captained the national side. He died at the age of 92 on 15th June 1985 and his headstone, in the north-west of HL division, bears the poignant inscription ‘A record Innings’.

He was not an Exonian as he was born in Balham on 22nd August 1892. He played for Sussex and Surrey in his cricketing career and was credited with scoring the fastest century up to that time in a match against Northampton, taking 35 minutes timed to his chagrin from the time he left the pavilion. He flew Farman biplanes in WW1 and was posted to India in 1916 in the RFC. Back in the UK in 1918 he broke his leg in five places playing football which left him with a permanent limp but this did not stop his cricketing prowess, retiring in 1936 and running a wine merchant’s business. In WW2 he became a Movements Officer in the RAF and was mentioned in dispatches. He had the unenviable job of trying to persuade Winston Churchill to wear an oxygen mask on a flight to Moscow even offering to cut a hole in it for Winnie’s cigar. His war service again took him abroad to South Africa, New Zealand, Australia, the Philippines and New Guinea.

Subsequently he was on London County Council and Deputy Lieutenant until 1976 whilst continuing his wine business. Eventually ill health brought him to Devon to be near his son Peter who had a wine shop in Topsham. He died in a local nursing home, which is why he is buried in Exeter. He played up to his idiosyncrasies, wearing extra-long sweaters and small round spectacles which he did not in fact need in his playing days although he became blind in old age. He was sounded out on the possibility of accepting a knighthood, but with a change of government this did not materialise.

FINDLAY, MARY  c1865-1917

This lady was killed on 7th March 1917 when Exeter Corporation tram No.12 suffered brake failure and ran away out of control down Fore Street, finally overturning on Exe Bridge. Mary was the only human fatality, although the tram clipped a horse and wagon and the horse was killed.the driver of the tram Charles Saunders, the conductress Mrs Harle and the five other passengers suffered cuts and bruises. At the inquest a number of witnesses gave different accounts of the accident.

Mary came from Swindon and had lived in Exeter for three or four years. She lived at 3 Leighton Terrace, York Road, was married and had one son. The driver of the tram, a former coachman, had only qualified a few weeks before,having joined the company on 18th January. Fore Street had the steepest gradient on the system at 1 in 11 1/2. In the event of brakes failing, sand could be dropped on the rails to provide more traction and the electric motors could be put in reverse, but at the inquest it was not clear what action driver Saunders took.

FORD, WILLIAM JOHN  c1897-1917 

William was killed in action on the 2nd day of the Battle of Passchendaele and his body was never returned to his home in Pinhoe Road. He is mentioned on the gravestone of his mother Alice in the Higher Cemetery, as well as on the RAMC memorial in Exeter Cathedral and the Ypres (Menin Gate) memorial. He was a private in the Royal Army Medical Corps, 24th Field Ambulance. On 31st July 1917 the unit was evacuating casualties via Ypres in appalling conditions; 21.7 mm of rain fell that day and by 1st August, the day that William died, eight men were needed to carry each stretcher because of the amount of mud.The work of the 24th Field Ambulance was recognised when they became one of only 12 British Army units and the only one in the RAMC to be awarded the Croix de Guerre.  

GILES, RALPH  c1884-1912

Ralph Giles was a 2nd class passenger making a business trip on the Titanic, something he had done before in the Olympic a sister ship of Titanic. He is believed to have been about 28 years old and had been living in West Kensington, but his parents lived at 11 Eaton Place, Exeter, now Heavitree road opposite the Pyramids Swimming Baths. He is mentioned on the gravestone of his father John William Giles.

 Ralph’s body was recovered from the sea and was interred in Fairview Cemetery, Halifax, Nova Scotia with many other victims, on 8th May 1912. 

GOODERE, WILLIAM  1852-1874

William Goodere was a Devon carpenter who decided to seek a better life in New Zealand. He travelled on the ‘Cospatrick’ with several other emigrants. The ship left Gravesend bound for Auckland but disaster struck off the Cape of Good Hope. In the early hours of 18th November 1874 fire broke out in the boatswain’s store. The crew were unable to control the fire and an attempt was made to launch the ship’s 5 lifeboats. Only 3 could be launched and one of those capsized on touching the water, drowning all its occupants. Of the two lifeboats which were launched successfully one disappeared during a storm three days later.  The lifeboats had no food or water on board and the stormy weather necessitated continual baling out. On the tenth day the ‘British Sceptre’ picked up the remaining lifeboat which now contained only 5 survivors, two of whom died shortly after their rescue. The other three were all members of the ship’s crew. They had survived by drinking the blood and eating the livers of their dead companions. A total of 469 people died, including William Goodere. He is mentioned on the headstone of the family grave in the north of division B of the Higher Cemetery. The inscription reads ‘William Goodere who was lost in the Cospatrick November 17th 1874 aged 21 years, deeply lamented’.

GORDON, WILLIAM  1863-1929

William Gordon was a physician and an authority on phthisis (TB), who lived in Barnfield Crescent, Exeter. He was born in Strabane, County Tyrone. After a public-school education, he went to Trinity College, Cambridge, and later studied at Heidelberg and University College Hospital. In 1890 he was appointed house physician at the Royal  Devon and Exeter hospital. From 1896 to 1898 he chaired a British Medical Association sub-committee on Army medical reform. In a meeting with the Minister of War William convinced the minister to change the Medical Service into the Army Medical Corps, later to become the Royal Army Medical Corps. In 1913 he lectured on ‘The Place of Climatology in Medicine’. Two years after that he was President of the Balneology and Climatology Section of the BMA. (Balneology is the study of medicinal springs and the therapeutic effects of bathing in them). He was Vice-President of the Section of Medicine 1923-25 and President of the South-Western branch of the BMA from 1924. His treatises on cancer, bacterial toxaemia and cardia pain were published in England, Europe and America. 

During the First World War he was Medical Officer of No.1 Temporary Hospital in Magdalen Road, Exeter, which was the Eye Infirmary where he had previously been an honorary consultant. Devon County Council commissioned William Gordon to investigate the cause and effect of phthisis in Devon. He contributed a paper on the disease to the International Congress of the Royal Institute of Public Health at Zurich in May 1929. 

In August 1929 he developed gastric influenza followed by heart trouble. He received treatment at Mowbray House, a small hospital off Butts Road, but died there on 1st October 1929 leaving a widow and one son. His grave is near the Higher Cemetery C of E chapel.   

GREEN, LEONARD ARTHUR  1923-1951

Born in Exeter, Leonard Green attended St Sidwell’s School and Exeter Junior Technical School. He joined the RAF, receiving his commission in November 1944. Eight months later he was awarded the DFC “in recognition of numerous operations against the enemy in which he invariably displayed the utmost fortitude, courage and devotion to duty”. On 24th January 1951 Flt Lt Green was the pilot of a Harvard II trainer in which he flew from Moreton-in-Marsh aerodrome. An eye witness described the aircraft coming out of the clouds almost vertically and exploding within a few feet of the ground on a farm at Church Honeybourne. The fuselage was buried six feet deep. Firemen dug for over an hour to recover the bodies of Flt Lt Green, and his co-pilot Flt Lt R.B.Jackson, from the burning remains of the aircraft.

GULDENPFENNIG, ROLF  1920-1942

At 8am on Thursday 12th February 1942 a German Dornier approached Rockbeare at low level shooting at a train. Over Rockbeare Nursery it dropped bombs and strafed the ground killing two nursery workers. They were Wanda Coombes aged 18 of Ilminster and James Pugh aged 26 of Ottery St Mary. 

The plane carried on towards Exeter airport and was shot down by ground defences. It crashed at Southwood Farm killing its crew of four.

The Germans were buried at the Higher Cemetery four days later; Rolf Guldenpfennig, Pilot, aged 22,  Gerhard Sommer, Observer, aged 34, Hermann Drame, Radio Operator, aged 26 and Rudolf Baron, Gunner, aged 19.    

HALSEY, PITMAN  C1821-1868 

Pitman Halsey was born at Budleigh Salterton and was apprenticed to Edward Green, a silk mercer, at 223 High Street, Exeter. He started a drapery business at Budleigh in partnership with Ann Halsey (his mother?) but they were bankrupted in April 1852. One month later Pitman married Mary Morris of Budleigh Salterton.

In 1856 Pitman became a dealer in Berlin wool at 212 High Street, Exeter, by the corner of Goldsmith Street and would continue in business there for the next 12 years. Berlin wool was a soft wool used for embroidery.

In 1860 Pitman Halsey was one of several businesses in Exeter which agreed not to open on Christmas Eve, a Monday, so that their assistants would benefit from three consecutive days off. They also brought in early closing during the winter months, meaning that their shops closed at 6pm.

Between 1859 and 1865 Pitman Halsey sat on the Grand Jury in Exeter.

In 1865 he donated 3 guineas to the Albert Memorial Museum foundation laying and in 1866 he gave 1 guinea to the relief fund of the Great Fire of Ottery.

Pitman Halsey died on 27th November 1868, aged 47, and was buried in the Higher Cemetery. His wife died on 24th November 1869 and is buried with him.

The business passed to M&S Carter.

HANCOCK, ALICE  1883-1954

Alice Maud Margaret Hancock served as a Matron during World War 1. She was commended for Distinguished Service and awarded the ‘Médaille de la Reine Elisabeth’ which was instituted in Belgium on 15th September 1915 as a consequence of WWI and was awarded for the relief of suffering of the civilian population, the sick and the wounded.

HARDING, FRED ARCHER  1893-1919

In 1913 Fred left his job as a labourer in an iron foundry and signed on for 12 years with the Royal Navy. He started as a Stoker 2nd Class on HMS Vivid at Devonport, now known as HMS Drake. One year later he was promoted to Stoker 1st Class on HMS Conqueror. In 1917 he transferred to the Royal Australian Navy for a three-year engagement. He was promoted to Leading Stoker in 1918 and served on HMAS Sydney, which was at Scapa Flow in 1918 when the German High Seas Fleet surrendered. Fred died of influenza and pneumonia at Chatham on 28th February 1919. His body was brought back to Exeter (his mother was living at 6 Melbourne Street) and was buried in the First World War section of the Higher Cemetery on 8th March. He is mentioned on the Australian War Memorial in Canberra as well as on the Higher Cemetery war memorial.

HAYWARD, JOHN  1807-1891

John Hayward came to Exeter in about 1834 and worked as an architect from offices at 20 cathedral yard and 50 High Street from 1839 until his death on 7th May 1891. He was the official architect of the Exeter Diocesan Architectural Society so he was involved with all new church designs in the diocese. 

He was trained by Sir Charles Barry, who designed the Palace of Westminster, and was also related to him by marriage. In 1853 he rebuilt Exeter Prison, basing his design on that of Pentonville.In 1868 he submitted the winning design, out of 30 entries, for the new Albert Memorial Museum.

John Hayward’s son, Pearson Barry Hayward, worked with him as Messrs Hayward & Son. They are buried within a few feet of each other near the Higher Cemetery chapel. John’s grave does not have a headstone although that of Pearson Barry Hayward, who died 3 years before his father, does. 

HEMS, HARRY  1842-1916

The sculptor in wood and stone first came to Exeter in 1866 to work on the museum. He had a workshop in Longbrook Street which is now a restaurant. His logo was IXL ( I excel ). The business employed over 100 people and their craftsmanship was recorded in over 400 churches and 100 public buildings. Examples of their work in the Higher Cemetery include memorials to  Charlotte and Samuel Bird, James Croft, William Lloyd-Jones, Edward Ladell, Edward Robins, Edward Towning, Thomas Webber, Harry Hems' family and the Exeter theatre fire of 1887.

HENDY, GEORGE  c1866-1919

George Richard Hendy was the son of George and Emily Hendy and the brother of Charles, Harry, Elizabeth and Annie.

In 1895, while at King’s College he successfully applied for an Assistant Lectureship in the Civil Service Department. In the same year he married Florence Hall in Heavitree Church. Their only child was Triffin Ruth Hendy. The family lived at Westcliff, Essex, from 1901 to 1919.

George became Assistant Master of Strand School. This was a grammar school located in the basement of King’s College and its priority was to prepare pupils for careers in the civil service.

George Richard Hendy died at his mother’s house, 32 Pinhoe Road, on 26th July 1919 and was buried in the Higher Cemetery, division A1.

HENNESSY, JOSEPH  c1815-1900

Joseph Hennessy was born in Cobh, Ireland. At the age of 15 he ran away to sea on a merchant ship. Five years later he joined the royal Navy at Devonport and served on HMS Malabar and then HMS Talavera, which were both Repulse class 1718-ton wooden sailing ships with 74 guns. He joined HMS Inconstant in 1843 sailing mainly in the Mediterranean. In 1843 he was discharged from the Royal Navy and joined the coastguard at Whitstable. Two years later he married his first wife Harriet who bore him 10 children. Harriet died in 1867 aged 41. Joseph re-joined the Royal Navy during the Crimean War when he served on HMS Cressy and was awarded the Baltic Medal. 

At the age of 70 Joseph, a naval pensioner living at 9 Iron Bridge, Exeter, married his second wife, Louisa, 14 years his junior. They later moved to 61 Holloway Street where Louisa died in 1898. Joseph moved to 19 Friars Walk and died of old age on 27th September 1900. Joseph and Louisa are both buried in the Higher Cemetery.  

 HERBERT, EDWARD LEACH  1799-1866

In the 1840s Edward was landlord of The Valiant Soldier in South Street.  He had 1 son and 4 daughters with his wife, Mary Ann. 

Edward died at home, 3 St Sidwells, on 1st June 1866 following a short painful illness. His funeral took place on 7th June 1866, the first burial in the Higher Cemetery. Mary Ann moved to The Bays, Budleigh Salterton. She died in 1878 and was buried with Edward. Their grave is behind the chapel, on the east side of the path. The stonework still exists although the iron railings were removed, presumably during the Second World War. The inscription is now barely legible except on a very bright day.

HOLMAN, FRED  1883-1913 

One of ten children of a Dawlish baker, Fred Holman trained as a chef and his ambition was to open his own restaurant. He was also a keen swimmer. In 1908 he won a gold medal at the London Olympics when he broke the Olympic record for the 200m breaststroke. Five years later, Fred contracted typhoid fever at Exeter swimming baths and he died on 23rd January 1913 at the age of 29. He was married but had no children. His funeral at the Higher Cemetery was attended by representatives of the British Olympic Council, the English Amateur Swimming Association and every swimming club in the district.

HOOPER,  WALTER GEORGE  1896-1918

Walter Hooper was born in Exeter and emigrated to America. When the United States joined the war in 1917 Walter enlisted with the American Expeditionary Force and served in France as a Private. He was killed in a gas attack in July 1918, aged 21, and was buried in France. However, in 1921, at the special request of his parents, Walter’s body was exhumed and re-interred in Exeter, paid for by the American government. Hundreds of citizens of Exeter attended his funeral.

HUCKER, WILLIAM HENRY  c1875-1915

Corporal William Henry Hucker was the first to be interred in the WWI section in front of the Higher Cemetery chapel, on the morning of 25th May 1915. He was aged 41 and a member of the Devonshire Regiment. He was present at the siege of Ladysmith in the second Boer War and re-enlisted for the First World War. 

HUNT, WILLIAM  1860-1936 

One of the rescuers at the Exeter Theatre Royal fire of 1887 died 80 years ago on 19th May 1936. Able Seaman William Hunt was home on leave from the Royal Navy and was in the theatre with his brother George when fire broke out. He saved several people from the fire and later went to the yard of the London Hotel where 120 bodies were laid out, helping until 4am the next morning. When giving his account of the fire he said “I am a native of Exeter. My Father lives in Portland Street. I don’t want any recompense; I only did what I could”. At the inquest into the fire Captain Shaw of the Fire service praised Hunt’s actions and the coroner agreed that he had displayed great gallantry and kindness. Two weeks after the fire the Mayor of Exeter thanked Hunt publicly at the Guildhall and presented him with a sum of money. He was also awarded a medal by the Royal Society for the Protection of Life from Fire and a second medal from the Ally Sloper magazine. The Royal Navy promoted him to Leading Seaman. After leaving the Navy in 1901 he worked as an electrician and lived with his wife Frances at South Lawn Terrace, until being recalled by the navy when the First World War broke out. For most of the war he was an instructor at Dartmouth Royal Naval College. Frances died in 1954 and is buried with William in an unmarked grave in the Higher Cemetery.

JAY, DUDLEY TREVOR  1921-1940

Dudley Jay was a flying ace who was awarded the DFC and was also mentioned in dispatches. He flew in the Battle of Britain with RAF 87 squadron and destroyed 8 enemy aircraft. The 19 year old pilot died when he had to bale out of his Hurricane over Ashcombe but was unable to open his parachute. He is buried in the WWII area of the Higher Cemetery.

JONES, FRANK  c1875-1924 

The Rev Frank Jones, one time rector of St Sidwell’s Church, died on 8th February 1924 of what may have been leukaemia or perhaps diabetes. The report in the Express & Echo described it as ‘an affection of the blood which so far seems to have baffled medical science. ‘He was only 49 and had been a very energetic and charismatic character with thespian leanings. He took the part of Captain Fluellen in a production of ‘Henry V’ at the Theatre Royal during Shakespeare Tercentenary celebrations and for many years held a service in the theatre accompanied by lantern slides on Good Friday.

He was by birth a Welshman, but educated in Manchester, ordained Deacon in Lincoln in 1906 and Priest in 1907. He came to Exeter as Curate at St Sidwell’s under the Rectorship of Prebendary Bird, whom he succeeded by popular acclaim in 1911. He was a fiery orator and for a period espoused the Labour Party. He never married.

His grave has the enigmatic injunction ‘Of your charity pray for the soul of an unworthy priest.’

JOORIS, RAYMOND  1917-1940

Raymond was born in London, the son of Joseph and Louisa Jooris. In 1940 he was stationed at RAF Benson in South Oxfordshire with the No.12 Operational Training Unit. This was the part of No.1 group of RAF Bomber Command where light bomber crews were trained. On 12th September 1940 he took off from RAF Benson, in a Fairey Battle, for an evening cross-country training flight with two other aircrew. They flew to the Tiverton area where Raymond, the pilot, suddenly encountered high ground in poor visibility. He tried to gain height but the aircraft stalled and crashed killing all on board. Raymond was buried in the Higher Cemetery, ZK61, on 18th September. His observer was buried at Arnos Vale cemetery in Bristol and his wireless operator/air gunner at Uphill churchyard, Weston-super-Mare.  

KENT, HENRY 1789-1873

Henry Kent was a Royal Navy Captain and Stipendiary Magistrate in Port Royal Mountains, Jamaica. He served at Copenhagen and Oswego and for 10 years on the Canadian Lakes. In 1834 the British Government appointed him to effect the Great Abolition Act and this he faithfully did for a period of 38 years.

KNEEL, JACK ARTHUR CHARLES  1898-1916

31st May is the anniversary of the Battle of Jutland. There is a memorial to one of the victims of this momentous sea battle in the cemetery. Jack Kneel R.N. is not buried here as his ship, HMS Defence, sank in the North Sea with all 903 crew members, among whom incidentally were nine other men from Exeter. The stone records that Jack, an Assistant Clerk, was only 17.

HMS Defence was an armoured cruiser built in 1908 with a gross tonnage of 14600 tons. Its main armament was four 9.2 inch and ten 7.5 inch guns, no match for the big 12 inch guns of the German battleships. She was the Flagship of Rear Admiral Robert (Sandy) Arbuthnot, who took the brave but foolhardy decision to engage the superior German force, and in doing so prevented Sir David Beatty in the Lion with her 13.5 inch guns from doing so. The inevitable outcome was that Defence was blown out of the water and sank taking all on board to the bottom. Jutland was a confused affair. The British Grand Fleet lost more ships and men than the German High Seas Fleet, but it was a decisive action and the German fleet did not again venture out of port and the war became a submarine war.

Footnote:- The Defence might have met an earlier fate as it was steaming to meet von Spee’s raiders at what became known as the Battle of Coronel on 1st November 1914 when we lost the Monmouth and Good Hope similarly outgunned. 

KNILL, JAMES  1841-1922

 James Knill was a native of Exeter. He started his working life as a solicitor’s clerk before becoming an assistant to a conveyancing barrister. In 1870 he set up in business as an accountant and agent of the Sun Fire & Life Office. Four years later he began stockbroking. The firm of James Knill & Co. were accountants, auditors and stocks and shares brokers with an office at Knill’s residence in Bedford Circus. Exeter Town Council asked them to investigate its accounts which Knill found to be £2000 adrift in 1878 – equivalent to £222000 in 2020. Dartmouth Corporation engaged them on similar work two years later. 

James Knill and W.Horton Ellis founded the Exeter Arcade Company and the Eastgate Coffee Tavern, both successful enterprises.

James Knill was a member of the Liberal party and, due to his connection with the Plymouth Brethren was mainly responsible for the building of the Fore Street Gospel Hall. He built his own house ‘Stokeleigh’ in Old Tiverton Road, which is where he died suddenly on 19th October 1922. He was married with one daughter and left £6214, worth about £289000 in 2020.

LADELL EDWARD  1821 – 1886

Self-taught still-life painter Edward Ladell was living in Colchester when he first had his work exhibited at the Royal Academy in London. He was 35 and married to Julia with whom he had a daughter Kate. He married for the second time in 1878 and moved to Devon with his new wife Ellen his 21-year-old student. They lived at Kenwyn Lodge, Exeter, and two years later their son Kenwyn was born. Ladell had a worldwide reputation as an artist; one of his paintings sold for £53,200 at Sotheby’s in 1994. Edward Ladell was also a musician and was a member of the Western Counties Musical Association and the Cathedral Sunday Evening Voluntary Choir. He died at home of congestion of the lungs on 9th November 1886. 

LAKE, JOHN HINTON  1845-1938

Hinton Lake was a well-known dispensing chemist in the Exeter area from 1868 to 1971. The business was started by John Hinton Lake in 1868. John Hinton Lake was born and died in Exeter. He went into business as a pharmacist in 1868 forming a private limited company in 1911. John married Ellen Neck in about 1869 and they had seven children. In 1938 his home was at 46 Magdalen Road. In 1873 John was awarded the silver council medal by the Pharmaceutical Society of Great Britain. He was elected president of the Exeter Association of Chemists and Druggists in 1897. He was also one of the founders of the Exeter Information Bureau and served on the Exeter Board of Guardians. John’s son John William Lake qualified as a pharmacist in 1893 and the business, advertised as ‘The Oldest Pharmacy in Exeter’ remained in the family until John’s grandson Roland Hinton Lake sold it to Holman Ham & Co. when he retired in 1971. The main premises of Hinton Lake were at 41 High Street, Exeter, which is now the Laura Ashley shop. There were also branches in Tiverton and Sidmouth in John’s time. John died on 1st June 1938, nine months after his wife, and was buried in the Higher Cemetery, near the chapel, after a service in St. Leonard’s Church.

LENDON, HEDLEY WILLIAM  c1900-1942

In March 1942 the German city of Lübeck was destroyed by RAF bombers. The Luftwaffe retaliated by bombing English Cathedral Cities in what became known as the Baedeker Raids; their targets being chosen from the Baedeker tourist guide. The very first Baedeker raid was on Exeter on the night of 23rd April 1942. Two Fire Guards, Hedley Lendon and his 17-year-old son Kenneth, were killed during the raid. Their home was in King William Terrace but they were in Okehampton Street at the time of the attack. They are both buried in the Higher Cemetery. Three other Exeter people, Henrietta Baxter, William Paddon and Cicely Wright were killed and were buried in Exwick Cemetery.

The Fire Guard Organisation was set up in August 1941 with volunteers organised into Street Fire Parties. The Exeter raid was its first test with the dropping of many incendiary bombs. In May 1942 it became compulsory for every man or woman not otherwise engaged in civil defence duties to enrol for Fire Guard duties. The organisation was disbanded in 1944 when the risk of fires had reduced because air attacks were now in the form of Doodlebugs and rockets rather than incendiaries. 

LINSCOTT, THOMAS  1843-1918

Tom Linscott was born at Marylebone in London but moved to Exeter at an early age. He was educated at Hele’s School and went on to become a pawnbroker, jeweller, gunsmith and Mayor of Exeter.In 1873 he married Maud Cole and they had one son.

Eight years later he was elected to represent the St Petrock’s ward which he did until 1900 when St Thomas became a part of Exeter. He was then elected for St John’s in an election which swept the Liberals into power displacing the Conservative establishment.

Tom Linscott became mayor of Exeter in 1905 and was made an alderman in 1914. He was the oldest member of the council having served for 31 years. He was a churchwarden of St John’s, president of Exeter Swimming and Life Saving Society, a member of Mount Dinham Trust and a member of the Cart Horse Parade committee. The Cart Horse Parade was held annually on Whit Monday between 1896 and 1914 and Tom was one of the judges. Thomas Linscott of John Street, Exeter, died on Christmas Eve 1918 and was buried near the Higher Cemetery chapel.

MAINMAN, JOHN & MARY   c1829-1915

John and Mary lived at 30 Wonford Road, Exeter, having moved from Cheshire in about 1885. They were very reclusive and frugal, rarely seen out of the house except on the first of every month when John went out to collect his pension. He was a retired civil servant on an annual pension of £250, about £27500 in today’s money, but would spend as little of it as possible. One Saturday morning the Rector of the parish got no reply when he knocked at their door and when the baker’s boy also got no response in the afternoon the police were called. The couple were found in a very weak state. They both lived for two more days, but on 15th March 1915 they died.  The cause of death was starvation. A search of their house revealed £1000 in cash and another £1000 in gold in various hiding places. £2000 in 1915 would be the equivalent of about £220,000 now. 

John and Mary had a son, Alfred, living in Canada. He inherited their whole estate and decided to use the money to begin a new life in England. He resigned from the City of Edmonton Treasurers Office and with his wife and five children left Canada and crossed the Atlantic on the Lusitania. While passing Ireland the Lusitania was torpedoed by a German U boat and sank. Three of the children survived, 16-year-old Molly and 7-year-old twins Betty and Teddy. The rest of the family drowned.

The estate was administered through the courts but the estate duties payable on the multiple deaths were so heavy that it was thought that the capital would be reduced so much that it would not be enough to support the surviving children. Molly became head of the family and raised the twins at Canterbury. She never married and she died in 1973. 

The funerals of John and Mary Mainman took place in the Higher Cemetery on 17th March 1915.

MASON, HUBERT  1810-1891

The Academy for Dancing and Exercises at No.7 East Southernhay was Hubert Mason’s dance school for the nobility and gentry of Exeter in the mid nineteenth century. He also held classes at Tiverton, Taunton, Ilfracombe, Barnstaple and Bideford, assisted by one of his two sons.  He organised an annual Christmas Ball at the Royal Subscription Rooms in Exeter. These premises were at the junction of High Street and New North Road but were destroyed in 1942. On his retirement in 1885 he was succeeded by his business partner of eleven years, Signor Vinio. His former pupils presented him with a silver salver plus 240 sovereigns. Hubert Mason died at home, 2 Dix’s Field, on 29th June 1891, aged 81. His grave is near the south-east corner of the Higher Cemetery chapel.

MATTHEWS, PERCY HAROLD  1882-1943

Percy Matthews was a postman and lived at 14 Union Road. He was better known in earlier life for water sports, being a water polo player for Exeter and Devon. He was a swimming coach at Dawlish Swimming Club where he trained Fred Holman, the winner of the Olympic gold medal for the 200-metre breaststroke at the 1908 London Olympic Games. Percy died on 22nd December 1943. His grave is in the ZB division of the Higher Cemetery.

McGILL, JAMES  c1882-1948 

James Mcgill was one of the first British soldiers to be sent to France in the First World War. He was in the Royal Field Artillery which was part of the British Expeditionary Force (BEF), referred to by the Kaiser as ‘Sir John French’s contemptible little army’ and afterwards by themselves as the Old Contemptibles. He was therefore a recipient of the 1914 Star (Mons Star) which was awarded to those who served in France or Belgium between 5th August 1914 and 22nd November 1914. Members of the BEF typically received two other medals, the British War Medal and the Victory Medal, which along with the 1914 Star were colloquially known as Pip, Squeak and Wilfred after characters in a Daily Mirror cartoon strip. 

The Old Contemptibles Association was formed in 1925. James McGill died on 22nd April 1948 and a metal plaque of the Exeter branch of the Old Contemptibles association marks his grave in the Higher Cemetery, ZO282.

McNEILL, PATRICK  c1883-1917

Patrick Kerr McNeill was born in Edinburgh and married Jessie Dewar from Holm on the Orkney Islands. He joined the Glasgow Yeomanry in 1914 and served in France for a year, being wounded twice on the Western Front before transferring to the Royal Artillery. He was training as a cadet officer at Topsham Barracks when he caught influenza and then pneumonia which was the cause of his death on 31st January 1917. His funeral in the Higher Cemetery was attended by 600 cadets. The coffin was carried on a gun carriage followed by Patrick’s horse.

Six days before Patrick’s death his brother William had died when the Laurentic struck a mine off County Donegal. The brothers are both commemorated on the Holm war memorial which overlooks Scapa Flow.

MEDLAND, ERNEST  1887-1914

The first Great War victim to be buried in the cemetery, Ernest joined the First Wessex RAMC at the outbreak of war. Whilst on training with the regiment on Salisbury Plain he contracted pneumonia and was taken to Exeter’s Number 1 Military Hospital (The Eye Infirmary) where he died on 1st November.

MEYER, FREDERICK WILLIAM  c1850-1906

An employee of Messrs Robert Veitch & Son, the Exeter horticulturists, F.W.Meyer died suddenly on 7th august 1906 at his home 15 Elmside aged only 54 and never fulfilled his full potential, but nevertheless he made his mark in many parks and gardens, specialising in rockeries and water features.

He was originally of German nationality, born in Silesia. It is believed that he met Peter Veitch in Germany where he was learning the trade. Meyer came to England in about 1875 and married a lady called Augusta from Stoodleigh in 1879. It is not clear if he was christened Frederick William or whether he anglicised Friedrich Wilhelm. He does not appear to have become naturalised.

His work in this country can be found in many places. He designed a complex rock garden at Bystock House in Exmouth, Wellington Park in Somerset and oversaw the re-arrangement of Northernhay Gardens in Exeter among other projects. He was working on a plan for the RHS Garden at Wisley when he died and he had started on a scheme for Heavitree Pleasure Ground and although this was not completed in its entirety the outlines can still be traced.There is a celebrated anecdote about his design for the grounds of Blundell’s School in Tiverton. The path from the gate to the school building winds in a serpentine fashion and Bishop Frederick Temple, an old boy of the school, queried why it was not straight, which would have been cheaper. Meyer’s response to this was allegedly - ‘well my Lord, in your profession straight is the line of duty, in mine curved is the line of beauty.’

The epitaph on his headstone reads:-

‘Life’s work well done

Life’s race well run

Life’s crown well won

And then comes rest.’

Footnote:- When McCarthy & Stone built the block of retirement flats in Butts Road a few years ago, they called it Meyer Court at the instigation of Cllr David Morrish to commemorate Meyer’s association with Heavitree.

MICHALOWSKI, JAN  1909-1943

Jan Michalowski graduated as a pilot in the Polish Air Force in 1934. Following the German invasion of Poland in 1939 he escaped to the UK via Romania and France and flew a Wellington bomber with 300 squadron. In 1942 he was in command of 307 squadron at Exeter and on 15th November he presented the Polish national flag to the city as a permanent reminder of the link between the city and the squadron which had protected it from 1941 to 1943.

On 21st March 1943 Michalowski was demonstrating how a Mosquito aircraft could be landed in the event of one of its engines failing but the aircraft crashed killing Michalowski and his navigator Stanislaw Szkop.The Polish Air Force ‘Wings’ magazine wrote ‘The funeral ceremony was held in Exeter Higher Cemetery turning it into a great manifestation of the British-Polish solidarity’

MILLER, EMMA  1861-1928

Miss Emma Mary Deborah Miller of 11 St. John’s Road was very interested in religious matters and gave lectures across Devon and Cornwall. She was particularly interested in the story of Agnes Prest who is remembered along with Thomas Benet on the Protestant Martyrs’ Memorial in Denmark Road. Miss Miller, as Hon.Secretary of the Exeter Protestant Martyrs’ Memorial Committee, was instrumental in its creation.

Agnes Prest was burned at the stake on 15th August 1557 in Southernhay because she had denied the Catholic doctrine of Transubstantiation and continually attacked Catholicism. She had previously left her Catholic husband but had been forcibly returned to him.

The Martyrs’ memorial was made by Harry Hems and Sons from Dartmoor granite. It was unveiled by Sir John Kennaway on 20th October1909 following a service in Bedford Church. Miss Miller was presented with an illuminated address and a duplicating machine by the memorial committee in recognition of her work towards providing the memorial.

Emma Miller died on 15th June 1928 and is buried in the Dissenters’ part of the Higher Cemetery.

MORTIMER, JOHN  1885-1917

Dr John Mortimer was Medical Officer at the Devon County Prison in 1913 when he attended the suffragette Mrs Emmeline Pankhurst. During her stay she refused food and drink for 85 hours but on release she spoke highly of the treatment she had received from the medical staff.                     

Dr Mortimer’s medical career also included roles as the examining medical officer to the Devon Constabulary, consulting surgeon to the Exeter Dispensary, consulting Physician to the Devon & Exeter Dental Hospital and medical officer of the Exeter Charity Organisation Society. He was also a member of the Medical Committee of the Royal Devon & Exeter hospital. After the outbreak of WWI he was Major of the 4th Southern General Hospital.                                                                                                           

Dr Mortimer died of heart failure on 9th March 1917 leaving his wife Mary and their only daughter.

MUNRO, HECTOR JOHN  1858-1921

Scottish born, to an English mother, Hector Munro came to Exeter via Westbury on Trym in 1878 and lived at ‘Hazelwood’ 43 Prospect Park. 

He served on the Executive Council of the Poor Law Union of England and Wales. In 1887 he was elected to the Exeter Board of Guardians, the workhouse administrators, and became its governor in 1894. He was a prime mover in the provision of the Children’s Home in Heavitree Road which opened in February 1914 but was used as No.3 Military Hospital from December of that year.  

In 1888 Hector Munro was elected to the directorate of the Exeter Benefit Building Society and became its secretary. He also became a director of the Richmond Building Society.

Politically a Liberal, Munro represented Trinity ward from 1891 specialising in finance. Four years later he was Hon Sec of the Exeter Liberal and Radical Union.

Hector Munro died aged 63 on 21st September 1921. A memorial service was held in the chapel of the Exeter Poor Law Institution. The funeral service in St James’ church preceded interment near the Higher Cemetery chapel. His wife Louisa died ten years later. 

NORRIS, RICHARD KENDALL N0RRIS  1859-1921

Dick Norris was the son of a wealthy woollen merchant who ran his business from 215-216 High Street, Exeter. His home was at Beacon Down, Pinhoe.

Dick became well known as the leader of ‘Young Exeter’, a group who held Bonfire Night celebrations in Cathedral Yard. Celebrations began with tar barrels being rolled down the street, a bonfire was lit by the west window of the cathedral and fireworks were let off. The celebrations got very rowdy and in 1879 the Mayor had to read the Riot Act. The crowd was dispersed by the police at about 2am. The last of these events took place in 1893.

During the 1880s Dick served as a Conservative councillor for St Petrock’s ward and was Hon Sec of the Council of the Exeter Working Men’s Conservative Union. He was also the treasurer of the Incorporation of Weavers, Fullers and Shearmen of Exeter, at Tuckers Hall in Fore Street.

On 9th January 1921 Richard Kendall Norris died of heart disease while visiting Margate. His body was brought back to Exeter by train for a funeral service in St David’s Church and burial near the chapel in Higher Cemetery. His wife Beatrice died at Eastbourne in 1941.

OXENHAM, WILLIAM 1823-1875

During the Siege of Lucknow, Cpl Oxenham saved the life of Mr Capper of the Bengal Civil Service by pulling him from beneath a fallen verandah. The rescue took 10 minutes during which time they were exposed to heavy fire. He was one of the first recipients of the Victoria Cross.

PARK, CECIL WILLIAM  1856-1913

Major General Cecil William Park commanded the 1st Battalion of the Devonshire Regiment in the South Africa War 1899-1902. He was mentioned in dispatches for his part in the defence of Ladysmith, famously leading the ‘Charge of the Devons’ at the Battle of Wagon Hill. An attack by the Boers commenced at 2am on 6th January 1900 and fighting continued until ended by The Devons’ bayonet charge at 5pm. There is a memorial plaque in St Edmund’s chapel (the Devonshire Regimental Chapel) in Exeter Cathedral. Major General Park died at his Cheshire home on 29th March 1913 and his body was taken on a gun carriage draped with the Union Jack to Poynton railway station from where it was transported to Exeter. A service in St. Edmund’s Chapel was followed by interment near the chapel at the Higher Cemetery. The grave is marked by a stone inscribed CWP  THE GIFT OF GOD IS ETERNAL LIFE.

PARRY , HUGH LLOYD  1865-1950

Hugh Lloyd Parry was born in North Wales and came to Exeter in 1905 as Town Clerk, a position he held for 25 years. During this time, he saw Heavitree and St Thomas become part of Exeter, Rougemont House and gardens were purchased by the council and the Civic Hall was built (later to be replaced by the Guildhall shopping centre). During the First World War he was awarded the OBE and the Belgian Order de la Couronne. 

After his retirement as Town Clerk Lloyd Parry was Governor of the Royal Albert Memorial Museum and the City Library. He was also the president of the Exeter branch of NALGO, the National and Local Government Officers’ Association. 

He wrote several books about Exeter, including ‘The History of Exeter Guildhall and Life Within’ and ‘Medieval Council of Exeter’. 

Hugh Lloyd Parry died on 1st December 1950 and was buried near the dissenters’ chapel in the Higher Cemetery, following a service at Southernhay Congregational Church.

PEARSE, JOHN GILBERD  1826-1910

The Community of St Wilfrid’s was founded in 1866 by the Reverend Pearse, rector of Allhallows-on-the-Walls. This was a Church of England Order of nuns based in Bartholomew Street which helped poor families in the west quarter of Exeter. They provided nursing care, ran soup kitchens and set up an orphanage on St David’s Hill. The orphanage existed from 1866 to 1950. Rev.Pearce opened a school, staffed by nuns, called the Forty School because it had room for 40 pupils. The school evolved into the present day St.Wilfrid’s school.The Community of St Wilfrid’s came to an end in 1997 due to a lack of young women who wanted to become nuns. The last of the nuns was Mother Lillian who died in Exeter, aged 107, in 2004. She had been a member of CSW since 1932.

John Gilberd Pearse attended Sidney Sussex college at Cambridge where he earned a MA in 1854. He was ordained priest at St David’s and worked at Kenn before moving to Allhallows-on-the-Walls where he remained until his retirement in 1904. His wife, Julia, died in 1908 and he died on 25th July 1910. They are both buried in the Higher Cemetery as are some of the nuns of the Community of St Wilfrid’s.

PETER, WILLIAM  1837-1917

William was the Keeper of Exeter Castle and the castle crier for 45 years. He was well known for his long snowy white beard, and previously served in the County Police Force at stations including Clyst Honiton and St.Thomas.

PETERS, DOUGLAS STUART  c1923-1943

Douglas Peters was the son of Albert and Olga Peters from Gwelo, Southern Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe). He was a pilot in 266 (Rhodesia) Squadron of the RAF. The squadron was at RAF Exeter from January to September 1943 and was the second RAF squadron to have been equipped with Hawker Typhoons. These aircraft had a few reliability issues including their Napier Sabre engines having a tendency to cut out. Another problem with Typhoons was that they were easily mistaken for Focke Wulf 190s by allied pilots and ground crew. Various paint schemes were experimented with to make them more recognizable.

The squadron was scrambled on 15th April 1943 but Sergeant Peters did not complete his mission. He died when his aircraft crashed in the English Channel, 3 miles south of Bolt Head. His body was recovered and buried in the WWII Commonwealth War Graves section of the Higher Cemetery.  

PETT, WILLIAM  1858-1934

Kent-born Pett joined Sevenoaks Fire Brigade aged 16 in 1875 and advanced to Chief Engineer there. Following the Theatre Royal tragedy in 1887 Exeter City Council appointed Pett to the Superintendent’s post. He modernised the service and was responsible for several patents for equipment, improvements to sprinkler systems and coded whistle communications for firefighting. 

PLUNKETT, THOMAS  1788-1872

A ceremony was held on 18th June 2015 at Forde Parke Cemetery in Plymouth to commemorate a soldier who had fought at Waterloo who is buried in Plymouth. We in the Higher Cemetery cannot claim a similar survivor of that battle but we did have a headstone ( now alas scrapped or buried ) commemorating a veteran of the Peninsular War, who fought under Wellington, then Sir Arthur Wellesley, and the inscription read:- 'THOMAS PLUNKETT, formerly Sergeant Major of 3rd Dragoon Guards Present with his regiment in action from Salamanca to Toulouse Irreproachable as a soldier Kind and true as a friend Humble and reverent as a man.’ The Battle of Salamanca was on 22nd July 1812. The Peninsular War lasted from 1808 to 1814.

PRETTY, ROBERT  1840-1910

Robert Pretty came to Exeter from Syddington in Rutland. From 1863 to 1910 he ran his Hair Dressing Rooms at 264 High Street, Exeter. This building was one of the oldest in the city, dating from 1597. It was destroyed in 1942 but stood at the present location of Boots / HSBC at the eastern end of the High Street. Two years after starting his business Robert married Frances Warren of 19 Queen Street, and they raised a family above the shop. Robert also had a second hairdressing shop at No.9, The Arcade. Robert liked walking on Dartmoor and was a sidesman at St.Lawrence’s Church, having previously been its churchwarden. He also served as the treasurer and the chairman of the St.Lawrence Feoffees (trustees of the estate).  

On the morning of 10th April 1910 Robert collapsed when he was coming down the stairs. He never regained consciousness. He was buried in the Higher Cemetery three days later. His widow was buried with him in 1920.    

PROWSE, WILLIAM HENRY  1862-1898

Assistant Surveyor with Exeter City Council, William Henry Prowse died on 20th September 1898, aged 36, having been ill during the summer following an attack of rheumatic fever. He was a great lover of nature and would spend weekends camped on Dartmoor. His obituary described him as a sterling fellow, a faithful servant and an unobtrusive gentleman. In 1895 he was involved with the installation of the monument in Northernhay Gardens which commemorates the 1852 formation, in Devon, of the Volunteer Force of Great Britain which in 1908 became the 4th Battalion of the Devonshire Regiment Territorial Force. The memorial was made by Harry Hems, the well-known local sculptor who is also buried in the Higher Cemetery.

RALLING, OCTAVIUS  1858-1929

At the age of 23 Octavius Ralling was an architect’s assistant at Colchester, the town of his birth. He moved to Exeter in 1884, joining his brother James and sister Emmeline. He was to married Ellen (Brown) of Exeter for 38 years. They had 4 sons and 4 daughters and lived at addresses in Blackboy Road, Regents Terrace and Devonshire Place.

Octavius Ralling went into partnership with Lewis Tonar in Bedford Circus. They designed new Public Rooms in Bodmin, shops in Exeter High Street and Fore Street, Exeter’s Tepid Swimming Baths and Turkish Baths and the Oddfellows Hall in Catherine street (pictured). The foundation stone of the Oddfellows Hall was laid with a mallet and silver trowel presented by Octavius Ralling and a bronze tablet on the stone mentions Ralling and Tonar as the architects. They were also the architects when St Nicholas Priory was restored in 1913-1916. In 1912 Octavius Ralling designed the altar for the Higher Cemetery chapel.

Heavily involved with local politics, Octavius was Hon Sec of an Exeter branch of the Primrose League which promoted Conservative values and he was vice-president of St John’s Ward Conservative Association. He designed the Thorverton & Cadbury Conservative Club building which later became Thorverton Memorial Hall.   

Octavius Ralling died on 1st February 1929 and was buried with Ellen, who had pre-deceased him by 3 years, in the Higher Cemetery, plot E38.

READ, HERBERT HENRY  1854–1904

Having learnt the woodcarving trade as an apprentice to Harry Hems, Hebert Read decided to set up his own business, St Sidwell’s Artworks, specializing in ecclesiastical wood carvings. He is noted, amongst other things, for the restoration of the front of Exeter Guildhall. The business passed to his son and then to his grandson. 

RODGMAN, ARTHUR GEORGE BANFIELD  1895-1917

Arthur Rodgman was born in Bedminster, the son of George a stationary engineman. The family later moved to Baker Street, Heavitree. Prior to the First World War Arthur had been an apprentice Tailor but in 1917 he enlisted with the Royal Flying Corps. On 20th August 1917 he flew from Northolt to Oxford but on the return journey he was killed when his aircraft, an RE8, caught fire and crashed from a height of 100 feet. The RE8 was a type of aircraft with a reputation for being difficult to fly and was generally considered unsafe. Flight Sergeant Rodgman is buried in the WWI section of the Higher Cemetery. The Royal Flying Corps was part of the British Army during WWI giving support to ground troops. During 1917 a total of 2094 RFC aircrew were reported as killed in action or missing. The RFC was merged with the Royal Navy Air Service to form the Royal Air Force on 1st April 1918.

SANFORD, EDITH  1879-1942

Edith Beatrice Sanford was a pupil at the Royal Albert Memorial College in 1900. Nine years later she was the headmistress of Heavitree Parochial (Girls) School when the diocesan inspector classed the school as excellent. This is the school in South Lawn Terrace which is now called St. Michael’s Church of England Primary Academy. In 1918 Miss Sanford was the Vice-President of the Exeter branch of the National Federation of Women Teachers. She became principal of St Hilda’s School in York Road, succeeding her sisters Alice and Rose, from 1922 until it was destroyed in an air-raid in May 1942. Edith Sanford died at home in Tiverton Road on 9th August 1942.

SCATTERGOOD, FRANCIS  1862-1887

Bombardier Scattergood was a Royal Artillery soldier watching a performance of ‘Romany Rye’ at the Exeter Theatre Royal when fire broke out. He saved many people from the inferno but suffered fatal burns himself. As a result of his actions he was awarded a posthumous bravery award and he also received a full military funeral.

SCHRADER, HUGO  c1889-1918

Private Hugo Schrader was a German prisoner of war who had been wounded on the Western Front. He died, aged 29, at the No.1 War Hospital in Magdalen Street on 21st September 1918. The body was taken to the Higher Cemetery on a gun carriage which was drawn by horses from Topsham Barracks with an escort of soldiers from the Higher Barracks.

SEAGE, CHARLES MANNING  1876-1926 

Charles Seage lived at 26 Poltimore Square, Exeter, and had been an auxiliary firefighter for 30 years, also working as a mechanic for Huxham & Brown in Commercial Road. His brother had died in the Exeter theatre fire of September 1887.

On 30th December 1925 the fire brigade was called to a fire at the Exeter Gasworks coke dump where it maintained a continuous presence under Superintendent William Pett for 4 days. On 1st January 1926 Seage was on duty at the top of a 60-foot-high stack of coke with his colleague Frank Pemberthy when they both lost consciousness having been overcome by undetected fumes. Pemberthy later recovered but Seage was given artificial respiration for an hour to no avail. The coroner’s verdict was accidental death due to carbon monoxide poisoning. This was the first fatal accident at the gas works and the first in the City Fire Brigade. Superintendent Pett had been the brigade’s first chief when it was formed as a result of the theatre fire of 1887. He was overcome with emotion when expressing sympathy to Seage’s family at the inquest and was unable to continue with his speech. Charles Manning Seage’s funeral took place in the Higher Cemetery on 6th January 1926.  

SEAGE, EPAPHRAS  1829–1895

He invented the 'Seage Silent Apparatus' which allowed bell-ringers to practice without disturbing the neighbourhood. He didn't protect the apparatus by patent and therefore copies and improvements were carried out by others. He also invented special money tokens that could be used in pubs throughout Exeter.

SERPENTELLI, TERESA  1833-1918

Teresa Casagrande was born in Genoa in 1833. She emigrated to Britain and married John Serpentelli when she was 21. For about 50 years they sold ice cream and confectionery in Exeter. One of their 13 children was the last person to be buried in Roman Catholic section of the old cemetery in Bartholomew street. Another was the first to be buried in the Roman Catholic portion of the Higher Cemetery.

Teresa Serpentelli died on 22nd December 1918. Pope Benedict XV sent a papal blessing in articulo mortis, Father Barney held a requiem mass and her funeral was attended by Sisters of the Presentation Convent, Palace Gate.

SETTER, HENRY  c1842-1887 

The West of England Fire and Life Insurance Company ran its own fire service before the Exeter City Fire Brigade was established, following the theatre fire of 5th September 1887. During the Exeter theatre fire, although far from well, Henry Setter was on duty continuously for 16 hours. Later the same month whilst attending a fire in Longbrook Street he suffered a seizure and was taken home where he died a few days later on 22nd September 1887. He had been a fireman with the West of England Company’s Fire Brigade for about 14 years. Henry Setter’s funeral in the Higher Cemetery was attended by firemen and members of the Ancient Order of Foresters to which he belonged. The coffin was carried by his fellow firemen. 

SHAPCOTT, VIOLET MARGUERITE  1889-1913

Violet was born into a musical family at 46 Longbrook Street; her father was a Professor of Music. She had four sisters and one brother. They later moved to a house in Pennsylvania which her father named St Cecilia after the patron saint of music. After being trained at the Royal London Academy of Music, Violet taught the violin at 6 Hills Court, Longbrook Street. She was also a member of the local Oratorio and Orchestral Societies. At the age of 24 Violet suddenly become ill with cancer and had to give up work. Over the next two months her health deteriorated until she died at home on 15th December 1913.

SIMONS, ALFRED PARMENTER  1824-1857

 A.P.Simons joined the Bengal Artillery as a 15 year old cadet. Two years later he went to India as 2nd Lieutenant. In May 1854 he attained the rank of Captain. He defended the Residency of the British Resident General in Lucknow during the Indian Mutiny.  On 30th June 1857 he took part in the Battle of Chinhutand was wounded twice but got himself back to the Residency before it was surrounded. He was engaged in the siege until he died of his wounds on 7th September 1857. Captain Simons was mentioned in dispatches. His Indian Mutiny medal sold at auction for £3200 in 2005.

 A.P.Simons is mentioned on the gravestone of his widow, Catharine Munro, who is buried in the Higher Cemetery. Their infant daughter died at Niani Tal in August 1857. Alfred was at the Siege of Lucknow at the time so he never learned of her death.

SLEEMAN, MARWOOD THOMAS  1862-1938

The founder of M.T.Sleeman & Sons, building contractors, was born at Germansweek in North Devon but lived in Exeter for most of his life. He married Matilda Jane Richards with whom he had 2 daughters and 3 sons. Their second son, Osmond Tamlyn Sleeman, was killed in action while serving as a private in the Devonshire Regiment in the First World War. He is buried in Amara War Cemetery in Iraq although there is a memorial to him in Pinhoe Road: Marwood was a member and officer of South Street Baptist Church for 50 years and he donated the site of Pinhoe Road Baptist Church in Osmond’s memory. Marwood died at home in Mount Pleasant Road, on 5th October 1938. His funeral service was held in Pinhoe Road Baptist Church followed by interment at the Higher Cemetery. 

SPILLER, ALFRED HENRY  1924-1944

Aircraftman 1st Class Alfred Henry Spiller was the son of Alfred Samuel Spiller and Blanche May Spiller of Exeter. He was stationed at No.1 Lancaster Finishing School at RAF Hemswell in Lincolnshire.On Easter Saturday 1944 he was one of six ground crew on an air experience flight aboard a Lancaster bomber which crashed in flames at Caistor airfield.  This was the only Lancaster ever lost by the No.1 LFS and the cause of the accident was never determined although the engines were heard to splutter as the aircraft flew in at low level. Alfred and eight others were killed. They included Taniya Whittall a ‘Spitfire Girl’ of the Air Transport Auxiliary, the only woman to die in a Lancaster. In 2014 a plaque was unveiled at the crash site, now called Airfield Farm. Alfred was buried in the Higher Cemetery on 13th April 1944.

STEVENSON, GEORGE  1884-1918

George Stevenson was born at Greymouth, New Zealand. At 20 years of age he joined the Royal Australian Navy as Stoker 2nd Class on HMAS Cerberus. Seven weeks later he transferred to HMAS Melbourne gaining promotion to Stoker the following year. HMAS Melbourne was a Town class cruiser. In 1914 she escorted a convoy which was transporting troops to Egypt but left the convoy in the Indian Ocean to go to Gibraltar and then the Azores to search for the German SMS Karlsruhe. The cruiser later patrolled the western Atlantic from Canada to Brazil until sailing to Devonport in 1916. She then joined the British Grand Fleet at Scapa Flow. In 1917 she underwent major repairs and was fitted with an aeroplane platform. 

Six months later George Stevenson contracted pneumonia and died on 21st May 1918. He is buried in the Higher Cemetery WWI section.

STOKER, GEORGE  1854-1920

He was a Doctor who served with the Red Cross and the Red Crescent. During the Russo-Turkish war he transported over 2,000 wounded people to safety.      In South Africa he discovered the benefits of using oxygen in healing wounds which is still used today. George’s memories of travelling through Romania inspired his brother, Bram Stoker, to write 'Dracula'.

STONE, JOHN  1800-1868

‘Honest John’ was a silversmith at 36 High Street, Exeter, on the site now occupied by Paperchase; the original building was damaged in 1942 and demolished in the 1950s. The business employed six men and produced spoons, knives and commemorative ware, marked with the initials JS. John had 3 sons and a daughter. The eldest son, Thomas, worked in the family business from 1861 and took it over when John died. John Stone died on 24th March 1868 and was buried in the family vault in the Higher cemetery.

STRINGER, HAROLD  c1903-1987

Born in Birmingham; from 1937 until 1950s he played the Compton theatre organ at Exeter’s Savoy cinema between films. He taught piano and choral music in private schools; was organist and choir master at several churches and entertained transatlantic passengers voyaging on the Queen Elizabeth and Empress of Canada.

TAYLOR, RONALD JOHN WILLIAM 1899-1918

The Royal Air Force was formed on 1st April 1918 by the amalgamation of the Royal Flying Corps and the Royal Naval Air Service. Ronald Taylor was one of the RAF’s earliest pilots. He was an 18-year-old Second Lieutenant stationed at RAF Cranwell in Lincolnshire, which had formerly been the RNAS Training Establishment. On 9th May 1918 Ronald was killed while flying a DH4 aircraft, a type of biplane which had entered service with the RFC in March 1917. It was wrecked following a climbing turn and a flat spinning nosedive.

Ronald John William Taylor was the first member of the RAF to be buried in the Higher Cemetery. His grave is number 83 by the north side of the war memorial. He was the son of Frank and Gertrude Taylor of 53 Pennsylvania Road.

THOMPSON, ROSS  1847-1900

Ross Thompson was born in 1847 at Antrim in Northern Ireland. In 1871 he served in the First Battalion of the 11th (North Devonshire) Regiment of Foot as a Lieutenant in India. 

He was still in the battalion in 1881 when it merged with the Devon Militia, so he was in the Devonshire Regiment when it was first formed. 

During the 1890s he commanded 100 men in Egypt before retiring from military service.  

He was recalled on half-pay during the Boer War and became Officer in Command of the Companies of the Devonshire Regiment at Exeter. 

He died on 30th December 1900 at home in Queen’s Terrace after a short illness. On 2nd January 1901 he was a given a full military funeral.

The long procession from his home to the Higher Cemetery was headed by a firing party consisting of about 60 members of the Devonshire Regiment who were stationed at Exeter.

His wife Louisa Amelia died at Weston-Super-Mare in 1949 and was buried with her husband.

TOOTELL, FREDERICK HERBERT  1918-1940

Fred Tootell was the first World War II serviceman to be buried in the Higher Cemetery. He was a 21-year-old sapper in the Royal Engineers who died in hospital at RAF Halton, Buckinghamshire, on 7th January 1940. Fred was married to Elsie and their home was in Heavitree. Elsie died in 1996.

TOPOLNICKI, JULIUSZ  1910-1940

Born at Kiwerce in Poland, Juliusz Topolnicki attended the Cavalry Cadet School before going to the Fighter School at Deblin. He served in 133 & 161 Squadrons of the Polish Airforce and was promoted to lieutenant as an instructor. In 1939 he was evacuated from Poland and reached the UK in January 1940 having travelled through Hungary, Yugoslavia, Greece and France. He joined 601 Squadron RAF at Tangmere and shot down two ME109s before being shot down himself. He baled out and landed in a tree. Parts of his wrecked Hurricane P3382 are in the Tonbridge Battle of Britain Museum.

On 21st September 1940 Topolnicki was flying one of three Hurricanes which took off together from RAF Exeter. Topolnicki collided with one of the other two and died as his ‘plane crashed into an anti-aircraft gun post and burst into flames. His grave is ZK32 in the Higher Cemetery World War Two Commonwealth War Graves area.

TOZER, JOHN FERRIS  1858-1943

Ferris Tozer was educated at Oxford University where he became a Doctor of Music. He was a chorister at Exeter Cathedral before becoming an organist at St David’s church in 1875 when he was aged 18. He was organist at St Michael’s church in Heavitree from 1882 to 1930. He was a tenor soloist and founder and president of the Exeter and District Organists’ Association. Apart from having a musical career Tozer worked at the Devon and Cornwall Bank in Cathedral Yard, in the building which, in 1991, became Waterstones. Tozer was also a composer of hymns, anthems and cantatas, and a teacher of music. In 1882 Ferris Tozer married Florence Widgery in Exeter Cathedral. Florence was the sister of F.J.Widgery, the famous local artist and Mayor of Exeter. Tozer died at home, 20 Howell Road, Exeter on 15th December 1943. His funeral service was held in Exeter Cathedral. One of his cantatas, ‘Two Harvests’ was sung during the service. Florence had died in 1925 and Ferris was buried in the same plot as her in the Higher Cemetery.

TREADWIN, CHARLOTTE ELIZABETH  1820-1890

Charlotte Elizabeth Treadwin (nee Dobbs) died on Saturday 6th December 1890 at the age of 69, having been taken ill in the Cathedral on the preceding Sunday. She lived at No.5 the Close where she conducted her business as a lacemaker, and she was well known for her knowledge of lace and Honiton lace in particular.

She was born in Brompton Regis, near Dulverton, but moved to North Molton to learn the trade of dressmaker and milliner. At some stage she moved to Woodbury near Exeter, where it is believed she discovered an interest in lace, both local and also continental, eventually moving to Exeter and setting up business at No.5 Cathedral Close, next door to a watchmaker called John Treadwin, whom she subsequently married. Early on she acquired Royal patronage in June 1848, when Queen Victoria bought a lace handkerchief from her. She exhibited lace at the Great Exhibition in Hyde Park in 1851 and won a number of medals which are now in RAMM. She wrote a book in 1875 called ‘Antique Point and Honiton Lace’ and read a paper to the Devonshire Association in Exmouth in 1883. RAMM has a selection of lace samples from her collection and also a digitalised pattern book.

Honiton lace was a cottage industry carried on in countless homes across east Devon from Exmouth to Seaton and inland to Honiton and Cullompton, each person specialising in ‘sprigs’ which were gathered up by dealers and sewn on to net, originally hand-made but later machine-made. Someone once described lace as ‘the art of creating holes’.

UPRIGHT, JAMES  1816-1895

Owner of the City Mill (Cricklepit Mill) James was councillor for Trinity Ward and pioneered the Open Air Bathing Pool in Bonhay Road. His body was cremated at Woking, Surrey and the ashes interred here in a half-sized coffin. His grave was the first in Exeter to receive cremated remains.

VEITCH, JAMES HERBERT  1869-1907

James H.Veitch was born in Chelsea where the Veitch family ran one of their two nurseries, the other being in Exeter. He visited many countries as a plant collector, including India, Malasia, Japan, Korea, Australia and New Zealand between 1891 and 1893. His account of these travels was published as “A Traveller’s Notes” in 1896. He introduced new plants to Britain, including Prunus ‘Fugenzo’, Physalis franchetii and Rhododendron schlippenbachii. James married Lucy Elizabeth Wood in 1898 but they had no children. He was for many years the managing director of Messrs James Veitch and Sons of Chelsea but later moved to Pennsylvania Road, Exeter. James died of paralysis, aged 39, on 18th November 1907.

VEITCH, ROBERT TOSSWILL  1823-1885

Robert Tosswill Veitch studied farming near Slough and became an estate manager in Smyrna, later moving to the Cape of Good Hope. It was at the Cape that he married and four of his eight children were born. He moved back to Exeter in 1857 to work at his father’s nursery in Topsham Road. These premises were sold when Robert’s father, James, died and he set up business in New North Road where from 1864 he ran his nursery business, Robert Veitch & Sons. He landscaped the original six acres of the Higher Cemetery and updated the gardens at Bicton, Poltimore and Killerton. He introduced several varieties of plants which bear his name and was honoured by the Royal Horticultural Society.

Robert Tosswill Veitch died aged 61 of a lung infection on 18th January 1885 and is buried in the St. Leonard’s section of the Higher Cemetery. He was survived by his widow, four sons and four daughters.

VEITCH, SARAH JACOBA   1828-1919

Sarah Veitch, née Massyn, was the widow of Robert Toswill Veitch, the nurseryman who landscaped the Higher Cemetery when it first opened. The couple met at the Cape of Good Hope and were married in August 1847. Sarah died on 20th October 1919 and was buried in the St Leonards part of the Higher Cemetery, in the same grave as her husband. 

WARREN, JAMES SNEDDEN  1913-1941

Sergeant Warren of the Royal Canadian Air Force was the observer on a Bristol Beaufort, piloted by Sgt R.E.Gale of the RAFVR, which was attacked by a Hawker Hurricane from RAF Exeter in a case of mistaken identity, on 17th June 1941. The Beaufort crashed at Shute, near Axminster, killing its crew of three. The third man aboard was Wireless Operator Sgt Bryan Harrington of the RAFVR. The pilot was buried at Nottingham but Warren and Harrington are both buried in Higher Cemetery WWII graves. 

A remembrance service was held in Memorial Park, Carleton Place, Ontario, on 17th September 1941. James Warren had been a teacher before he enlisted in 1940 and his former pupils placed flowers at the base of the park’s cenotaph. A street in Carleton Place was named in Sergeant Warren’s honour.

WEBBER, THOMAS WILLIAM  1859-1926

A member of the Exeter Cycling Club for over 25 years, his gravestone bears the club's badge carved by Harry Hems & Sons. He was also the Hon.Treasurer of Exeter carnival.

WHITE, GEORGE  1886-1916

George White was the eldest son of Councillor John White and Mary White of 95 Paris Street, Exeter. He volunteered for the army early in WWI and gained promotion to Captain in the 1st Battalion of the South Staffordshire Regiment. Captain White led his men in the British advance on 1st July 1916, the first day of the Battle of the Somme. After being wounded in the side he jumped up and shouted “Come on boys! I’ll lead you down” but was immediately killed by a shot to the head. He was one of 57,470 British casualties of the battle on that first day; that’s more than the total combined British casualties in the Crimean, Boer, and Korean wars. George White is remembered at the Dantzig Alley British Cemetery, Mametz, and there is a memorial plaque attached to the White family grave in the Higher Cemetery. He left a widow and a baby son.

WHISTLER, THOMAS  1805-1896

Thomas Whistler was born in Lakenheath, Suffolk, and worked as a colonial agent in Fenchurch Street, London. In 1840 he sailed to Australia as a cabin passenger on the Fairlie, a three-masted square-rigged ship, having purchased over 400 acres of land near Adelaide.  He lived in Adelaide and Mitcham for a while before moving to Brownhill Creek.  Whistler is remembered as a founder of the village of Unley which he named after the village of Undley near his birthplace. He made his fortune by selling off parcels of land in the area as the village grew into a dormitory suburb of Adelaide. Unley became a city in 1906 and had a population of 20,000. In 1856 Whistler returned to England with his housekeeper, Mrs Elizabeth Bayley, to live at 5 Belmont Road, Exeter. He died on 1st August 1896 and was buried in the Higher Cemetery.   

A delegation from the City of Unley visited the Higher Cemetery in 1999 and the Deputy Mayor of Unley unveiled the plaque which is attached to Whistler’s headstone. Its inscription reads…

THOMAS WHISTLER FOUNDER OF A VILLAGE NOW THE CITY OF UNLEY SOUTH AUSTRALIA - THE CORPORATION OF THE CITY OF UNLEY AND THE NATIONAL TRUST OF S.A. (UNLEY BRANCH) ERECTED THIS PLAQUE COMMEMORATING THE 100TH ANNIVERSARY OF THE DEATH OF THOMAS WHISTLER.

 WILCOCKS, JAMES CARRALL  1826-1899

J.C.Wilcocks was born in Exeter. He was educated at Mount Radford School, King’s College London and Lincoln College Oxford. His great interest was sea fishing. For ten years from 1859 he lived in Guernsey and studied local fishing methods, introducing them to England on his return. For example, he introduced the live sand eel as bait for bass and pollock. He became an expert sea fisherman and an authority on the natural history of fishes. In 1863 he joined the staff of ‘The Field’ as a writer. In 1868 Wilcocks wrote The Sea Fisherman which soon came to be regarded as a major reference work about sea fishing. It is still on sale over 150 years later. At the time of his death, 3rd October 1899, James was vice-president of the British Sea Anglers Society. He died at home in Hampton Wick leaving his widow, three daughters and one son. His body was brought back to Exeter for burial in the Higher Cemetery. His wife Eliza was buried in the same spot, on the southern edge of Division B39, in 1917.

WILLIAMS, BERTIE  1886-1920

Railwayman and Coldstream Guardsman.

 The son of Thomas James and Susannah Williams of 39 Codrington Street, Bertie worked in the Signal and Telegraph Department of the Western District of the London and South-Western Railway. When war was declared in 1914 Bertie joined the Coldstream Guards as a reservist. He served with the 2nd Battalion at Ypres but his health was badly affected by the battle conditions. After the war Bertie and his wife Emily lived at 8 Sandford Street, Exeter. Bertie died on 15th October 1920. He was buried in one of the Higher Cemetery WWI graves in the strip parallel to Ladysmith Road. His railway colleagues collected £4, 3s for his widow, worth about £200 in 2019. She had five children under the age of nine years to support.

When the Coldstream Guards fought at Ypres in 1914 the 1st Battalion was almost wiped out. They were reduced to 150 men and a Lieutenant Quartermaster. 

In July 2011 the Coldstream Guards were given the Freedom of the City of Exeter. 

WOOD, DANIEL JOSEPH  1849-1919 

Dr Daniel Wood was organist of Exeter Cathedral for over 40 years. 

He was born at Brompton, Kent. He joined Rochester Cathedral Choir when he was 10 and sang treble until his voice broke. He played the organ in churches at Brompton, Cranbrook and Lee in Kent, also at Boston in Lincolnshire where he established a Choral and Orchestral Society.

In 1875 he became organist and choirmaster at Chichester Cathedral before succeeding Alfred Angel as the organist at Exeter Cathedral where he remained until his death on 27th August 1919. He was largely responsible for the restoration of the cathedral organ at a cost of £3500. He also organised a one hundred voice choir for festivals and special occasions and was, for some time, in charge of choral music at Exeter Maynard School.

Doctor Wood died of heart problems leaving a widow and two daughters. A funeral service in the cathedral, led by the Bishop of Crediton, preceded burial in the Higher Cemetery on 1st September 1919.  

There is a memorial plaque to Daniel Wood on the north wall of the nave in Exeter Cathedral.

WORTH, THOMAS BURNET  1867-1922

Thomas Burnet Worth came from Bristol to Exeter in 1872. His father, also called Thomas Burnet Worth, had a fine art business at Mol’s Coffee House in Cathedral Close. Thomas junior took over the business when his father died in June 1893. Six weeks later Thomas married Emily Hawkins and continued to live at his father’s house in Mount Pleasant until 1903 when they moved to 14 College Road. They moved again later to 24 Velwell Road. Thomas died on 12th August 1922 leaving a widow and three daughters. His grave is in the D8-10 / D43-45 plot of the Higher Cemetery.