Welford Road Cemetery Leicester

[Anstey Nomad]

Mr Nomad was so desperate to take me out today before the weather turns that he even offered to go to a Garden Centre, so I took him to Welford Road Cemetery in Leicester instead.

If you have rellies from Leicester it really is worth a visit. The friends of the Cemetery have had Lottery money to build a Visitors' Centre, staffed by volunteers.

I had the grave number from someone in GR and only popped into the Visitors' Centre to get some directions. Not only did I get the directions, I got to use their spotlessly clean loo, which is also their filing room (surprised I'm not still in there lol) and the chap behind the desk gave me a map of the cemetery as a whole, a map of the section where my rellies are buried and a print out of everyone of the two surnames I was looking for who is buried in the cemetery, which gives date of death, age, home address etc.

Found the graves really easily, but if I hadn't, I could have gone back and fetched the chap and he would have helped.

Even better than that, by complete accident, I found a memorial to Joseph Arthur Goadby who was said to have been eaten by a crocodile. I was always told his father went to Tunis to bring his body home but the memorial says he was buried in Tunis. Must get the death cert now - bet it says enteric fever or something!

If only all cemeteries were like this!

AN

[Margaret in Burton]

Brilliant

No, they aren't all like that. Most would have charged by the half hour and then charged again for each name you wanted looking up. That's the case in Burton cemetery, run by the council of course. They used to be really helpful, not any more, a money making scheme entered their minds some time ago.

[WendyPusey]

That's where a lot of my Jacques are buried. Wish I lived closer and could take a look around.

[Tom Tom]

I visited once and must say I had a similar experience to you.

They were so helpful, had a mine of information and I was able to find the graves I was looking for, even though one had no headstone.

[Nell]

This is probably the only site where you could post that you'd had a lovely day trip to a cemetery and not be thought bonkers!

Let us know about the death cert, when you get it!

[Mary from Italy]

I went last time I was there, but I must say I found the cemetery very hard to navigate.

[Anstey Nomad]

I didn't find it any more difficult to navigate than any other Victorian cemetery. In fact if I had been able to combine a morning in the cemetery with an afternoon just down the road watching Tigers hammer Scarlets, life would have been damn near perfect.

AN

[Nell]

Oh dear, a Tigers supporter! I knew there was something....

[Anstey Nomad]

*puts Tigers shirt in washing basket ready for next week's LWL*

Joseph Arthur Goadby's death cert now sent for. Place your bets.

Now wondering whether my Mum as a child asked what had happened to him and someone told her he had been eaten by a crocodile just to get rid of her. He couldn't have been completely eaten if there was something left to inter, surely?

AN

[Merry]

Place your bets.


What odds are you offering? :cool:

I will place my bet once you have told me :D

[Anstey Nomad]

I reckon it's about 50/50 at the moment Merry. Either the death cert will say multiple injuries or trauma or something that indicates that the crocodile story is true or it will say something much less noble, like enteric fever or something similar.

This worries me in a way because this was an absolute among the family stories I heard as a child and you couldn’t make it up (could you?) but it looks as if, like everything else my mother ever told me about her side of the family, it may not be true.

I’ve been doing this stuff for 24 years and I still don’t know what she was trying to hide.

AN

[Merry]

lol - I'll place a bet that he drowned ;)


*selects five star holiday and a new car*

*drums fingers waiting for the cert and the money to flow in*

[Anstey Nomad]

*panics*

Crocodile Joe's death certificate arrived this morning. Thanks to Gwynne for providing the reference and to the GRO for processing my order so quickly.

As Merry has already correctly divined, the cause of death is simply "Drowned at Gamar, Tunisia."

This clearly leaves me in a difficult position, but glossing over my indebtedness to Merry, there is no mention of any form of reptilian involvement and I can't find Gamar on Google.

The only ray of hope might be the descendants of the pastor who registered his death, Arthur S Liley of rue Sidi zahnoul, Tunis.

AN

[Mary from Italy]

I suppose you could try e-mailing a Tunisian newspaper to see if any archives exist for that period.

[Anstey Nomad]

I am considering a number of options Mary, including enquiries about consular records and an attempt to locate the descendants of Arthur S Liley, as above.

Mr Nomad seems to think a trip to Tunisia might be the answer, but as he gets nosebleeds if he has to go any further than Barmouth, I am not convinced.

AN

[Olde Crone]

There is absolutely nothing stopping a person drowning in a nice easy sort of way and THEN being eaten by a nosey crocodile, possibly not completely eaten (otherwise no one would know he had drowned and there would be nothing left to bury....we are sure there WAS?)

OC

[Merry]

Not exactly divined.....

I hadn't seen this in time to save you ordering the cert, unfortunately :(
20th Sept 1923 The Times newspaper.......(about half way down)

http://i100.photobucket.com/albums/m13/merry_monty_montgomery/TheTimesSept20th1923.png

[Mary from Italy]

Hmm. If there'd been a crocodile involved, it would presumably have been mentioned in the press.

[HarrysMum]

This is probably the only site where you could post that you'd had a lovely day trip to a cemetery and not be thought bonkers!

Let us know about the death cert, when you get it!



Nell.......I think my seven year old grand daughter only visits me so I'll take her to the cemetery. Not sure what her school thinks as every time she returns home, she uses her latest trip to the cemetery with Grandma as her class talk. lol

At least I have one family member I can leave all my research.......lol

[Merry]

Make the most of it Libby! My kids loved churchyards when they were that age - I would have them searching for stones I knew the could find etc, but now they moan and groan at the very idea! lol

[Anstey Nomad]

Merry - you're a genius. I'm with Mary - I think if it had been a crocodile attack the press would have mentioned it.

Hmmmm

AN