Author: Richard

Job Cook 1829 – 1897 & Henry Davies (father in law) 1789 -1869

In the 1977 survey of memorials at St David’s there is a description that mentions a “tall obelisk” with the inscription JOB COOK, BOGGABILLA N.S.W. OCT 15 1897.
When the survey was carried out it recorded the inscriptions of what could be read and identified, but the survey is incomplete and many names and details went unrecorded. What then was this unusual inscription all about and where is Boggabilla and why an inscription on a grave of a person from Australia…well here is the story (so far) which makes fascinating reading.
GOONDIWINDI and BOGGABILLA are names more reminiscent of Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings than having a connection with Carmarthen and St David’s Cemetery. On Christmas Day in 1853 Job Cook aged 24 and Johanna Davies aged 34 were married at St David’s Church. Both lived in Bridge Street Carmarthen. Job’s father Charles being described as a labourer and Joanna’s father Henry** was a Draper who had his premises at 9 Bridge Street next to the Horse and Jockey Public House (176 Public Houses in Carmarthen at that time)
Job was a steerage passenger on board the ship “Closeburn” which departed Glasgow Scotland 6th June 1888 arriving at Moreton Bay (Brisbane) on 28th September 1888. Job then went to live with his brother Robert and his wife Catherine on their property “Oakhurst” which was about 25 miles south east of Goondiwindi in Queensland and 20 miles from Boggabilla NSW. He worked for Robert as a stockman until he was accidently killed when he was thrown off a horse on 15th October 1897 aged 68.
He is buried in an unmarked grave in a small cemetery in Boggabilla which even today has only 700 inhabitants and is primarily an indigenous Aboriginal settlement.
Why Job left for Australia is not known, but rather interestingly there are many descendants of the Cook family still living there and are well respected in their local community….as for Johanna she died in Burnley, Lancashire in March 1910 aged 93, and very unusually for the time, her body was transported back to her beloved Carmarthen by rail and on March 22nd she was buried in St David’s Cemetery with her parents Henry and Margaret. Despite the premature death of her husband Job some thirteen years earlier on the other side of the world she obviously never lost her love of him and the fact that his name and place of burial appears on the family grave in St David’s is testimony to the strong bond that existed between them……….
As always when carrying out research of this type it sometimes throws up the really “unexpected” and this story is no exception. HENRY DAVIES, Johanna’s father mentioned above had himself a remarkable life. What is not known to the “outside world” is that Henry (5ft 8ins with grey eyes and a dark complexion) enlisted as a young teenager in the 53rd Regiment of Foot in 1807 and after seven years with the colours found himself fighting in the foothills of Nepal in 1814. He was severely injured in the fighting and was medically discharged on 3rd November 1814, yet it was not until 37 years later – on the 14th October 1851 that he applied successfully for an army pension for which he was awarded sixpence a day. Also the same year, in 1851 the Honourable East India Company with approval from Queen Victoria approved the issue of the Army of India Medal to be issued to all of those who fought (and survived) in the campaign of 1814. Out of 600 men of the 53rd Regiment of Foot only 17 medals were issued, as most had died in the intervening years and many had not applied for the medal to which they were entitled to. Henry himself despite applying for an army pension the same year in 1851, also never applied for the medal to which he was entitled. Henry died on March 5th 1869 aged 86 and was buried four days later at St David’s without fanfare or fuss. However, in memory of his great and unsung heroic achievements I have purchased a copy of the medal to which he would have received and this will be used to further promote the rich heritage and history of St David’s.

HENRY DAVIES (53rd Regiment of Foot) from CARMARTHEN, and his part in the fighting of the Siege of Nepal (Kalunga) in 1814
Below is a small extract of the fighting that took place in which Henry Davies was severely wounded by gunshot in November 1814, but who survived and returned home to Carmarthen. He died in March 1869 aged 86 years old and is buried in St David’s cemetery with his family.
At 10:30 AM on October 31st 1814 three straggling companies of the Fifty-Third Regiment arrived, and Gillespie promptly led them in an attempted to salvage the deteriorating situation. A dragoon had noticed a small opening in the northwest wall of the fort. Gillespie, Mawby, Carpenter, and Ludlow met and decided to move toward the opening and to attempt to force their way through. The smoke from the burning huts provided a screen for their movement. Balbhadra Kunwar was well aware of the gap, and beforehand barricaded it with stones and logs and placed single cannon at its entrance.
Gillespie ordered a six-pound horse artillery gun to be brought up and fired into the entrance. He had hoped it would wreck the Nepalese cannon and barricade in order for his party storm through. Once he was satisfied it was demolished, he ordered Ludlow to personally take a storming party through the opening. When within point blank range, grapeshot was unleashed into them by the Nepalese cannon crew. Women and children began to hurl stones at them from atop the palisade wall. Ludlow himself was hit the thigh by a large stone. The combination of these factors led them to waver and fall back.
The Nepalese defenders once again left their interior defenses and crashed into the demoralized attackers. They were able to overrun the six-pound horse artillery gun. Ludlow attempted to lead a counter attack, but only four men were willing to follow him amid his desperate pleas. The men had lost their vigor against an enemy that displayed such admirable fortitude. One soldier by the name of John Ship recalled he “never saw more steadiness or bravery exhibited in my life. Run they would not and of death they seemed to have no fear though their comrades were falling thick around them, for we were so near that every shot told.”
Infuriated at this repulse, Gillespie personally led the men of the Fifty-Third in a counterattack within twenty-five yards of the fortress under a sweeping fire of arrows, matchlocks and grape shot. Just before 11:15 AM, Gillespie turned to a horse gunner and fellow Ulsterman, and roared, “Now Charles. Now for the honor of Down.” A Nepali sharpshooter took advantage of the exposed Gillespie frantically wielding his sword in the air and fired an aimed shot that penetrated his heart, instantly killing him. The death of General Gillespie caused the assault to come to a halt.

Mawby assumed command and immediately ordered the attack called off. The attackers streamed to the rear in the face of the bold Nepalese defenders. Campbell held his column still as he heard the fire growing more intense, and finally relented and moved his column forward. He arrived too late as Ludlow was already overseeing the withdrawal. The battle was over. The column suffered heavily with the loss of 35 killed and 228 wounded. The body of Gillespie was retrieved by his men and was preserved in alcohol mockingly ‘pickled’ until it arrived in Meerut for burial.
Nearly a month, later on, November 24, the attack was renewed by Mawby. It was again repulsed with heavy losses. After these two failed attempts to capture the fort, the water supply was cut off placed under siege. After 29 days, the Nepalese defenders, only 68 remaining of the original 600, attempted a risky breakout. Balbhadra Kunwar and the survivors were able to fight their way through the besieging force and escape, never formally surrendering. The fort was completely dismantled and burnt to the ground, in retaliation for the staggering 31 officers and 750 men lost.
The campaign to defeat the Nepalese would drag on for 18 long months, finally ending in March of 1816. The ferocity and courage that the Nepalese defenders exhibited in the battle of Kalunga, and in the war, captivated the British officers and soldiers who were tasked with conquering this rugged region. James Baillie Fraser praised their effort stating that they fought despite their “hopelessness of relief” and fought with “unsubdued courage.” As a result of their prowess in the war against the East India Company, thousands of Nepalese hill men were recruited in 1815 by the British to serve in their Indian Army. They became a pillar of the British Indian Army up until the independence of India in 1947.
Even though eventually victorious through the later efforts of David Ochterlony, the war was a costly endeavor for the East India Company. Pemble stated that it had failed to enhance British trade in the way Hastings had hoped. The repulse at Kalunga was a defining moment in British India. A ragtag collection of men, women, and children had shown they could defeat a professionally trained army of the British East India Company.
It was not until the 14th October 1851 – some 37 years later that Henry applied for and received a disablement pension of sixpence a day from the Army for the wounds he received in 1814. Though he was entitled to the Army of India Medal for his service in Nepal he never applied for it. The medal itself was not approved until 1851 and the medal roll confirms that only seventeen members of the Regiment ever received it.

SIR HENRY IRVING’S CONNECTION WITH CARMARTHEN.

“Sir Henry Irving’s baptismal name is John Henry Brodribb, but he added Irving to his patronymic after entering the theatrical profession. It will be news to many local readers that Sir Henry Irving has relatives at present at Carmarthen, namely, the Miss Brodribb daughters of the late Mr Joseph Park Brodribb**, who many years ago kept a private venture school in Bridge street. The following entry is taken from the old gentleman’s diary… John Henry Brodribb, a relative was born in February, 1838, at Keinton, Glastonbury, He changed his name to Henry Irving when he went on the stage,”

The above article appeared in the Carmarthen Weekly Reporter 7th October 1904.

(Note…Sir Henry Irving died in October 1905. He was the first actor ever to receive a Knighthood in 1895, and was the man upon whom Bram Stoker based his character of Dracula……. Stoker was the general manager of the Lyceum Theatre whilst Irving was the principal actor)

** Joseph Park Brodribb – a schoolteacher was buried in St David’s Cemetery Carmarthen (187 on burial plan) in March 1875.. The above photograph is of Sir Henry Irving taken about 1900.

This page is under development, please bear with us as we carefully populate the map to include everyone we can. Currently the pins are limited mainly to the people listed in What’s in a Name, a series of fascinating stories about some of the people resting at St Davids Cemetery, carefully researched and written by our founding Chairman Richard Goodridge MBE.

What’s in a Name … William Spurrell, 1813-89

William Spurrell, the third son of Richard and Elizabeth Spurrell was born at 13, Quay Street Carmarthen on 30th July 1813. The father, a former master, became clerk to the justices of the Carmarthen division of the county, an appointment he held until his death. The family settled in Carmarthen about two hundred years ago, when John Spurrell, an auctioneer left Bath to live in Lower Market Street (now Hall Street) and became estate agent for one of the Mansell’s. Their son, the aforementioned Richard, married Margaretta, daughter of Thomas Thomas,  Frowen, about two miles north-west of Llanboidy. George, younger brother of William, liked to claim that the Spurrell’s were an ancient family descended from a Roman invader called Spurilius, a name which occurs in Livy, but no one could be sure whether he was meant to be taken seriously.
William Spurrell attended the Queen Elizabeth Grammar School in his native town until he was about sixteen, when he was apprenticed to John Powell Davies, a councillor and leading citizen. After five years, young Spurrell left for London to work in the office of Bradbury and Evans, printers and publishers, where he had the experience of working from the original manuscripts of Dickens (Pickwick Papers and Nicholas Nickleby) and Disraeli (Henrietta Temple). In 1838 he also witnessed the procession of the Coronation of Queen Victoria, as he stood within a few yards of her as she was about entering Westminster Abbey.
He returned to Carmarthen in 1839 and on 18th August 1840 a certificate of registration was issued to him to establish a printing press in the Borough. His first printing office was in Spurrell’s Court, Lower Market Street, so-called because the family had property there. The following year he moved his business to 37 King Street, where he also opened a stationery shop. In these premises the business remained for the rest of its time in Spurrell hands. In the early days, all the printing was done in one room at street level and upstairs there was a book-binding room, but as business grew so the office was extended. Printing was done on hand presses- for more than thirty years until about 1872, when the first printing machine, driven by a primitive gas engine, was installed.

In time William Spurrell acquired for himself an enviable reputation as a printer and publisher and many important works issued from his premises. But he was, too, an author who published his own work. The first edition of his Welsh-English Dictionary he issued in 1848, his English-Welsh Dictionary appearing in 1850. For some years he had been engaged upon a comprehensive dictionary of the Welsh language, by the Rev. D. Silvan Evans. B.D. This is unquestionably the most extensive work of its kind ever printed. Some idea may be formed of the magnitude of the book when we say that the first part, embracing the letter A only, contains 420 pages of closely printed matter. The dictionaries ran through a number of editions and eventually earned praise from David Lloyd George in the following terms: ‘I deeply appreciate the great service which the firm of W. Spurrell & Son have rendered over a long period to the Welsh language by producing successive editions of their Welsh Dictionary. I myself have found their last edition invaluable …

Long after William Spurrell’s death the dictionaries were completely revised by John and Edward Anwyl, but they still appeared under the Spurrell imprint, the Welsh-English text first in 1914 and the English-Welsh version first in 1916. But the largest work ever undertaken was the Welsh dictionary of Daniel Silvan Evans, planned on a grand scale in 1884.

In 1857 he acquired Yr Haul, a Church monthly, priced sixpence, which had been produced at Llandovery from its inception at the beginning of that year, and was its editor during the time he published it up to 1884. A few years earlier, in 1862, he brought out a cheaper monthly, Y Cyfaill Eglwysig, price one penny. During this period—1860 to 1884—he also produced a small weekly pamphlet called The Carmarthen Chronicle and Haul Advertiser, which served as a means to publish his personal views, often of antiquarian interest, as well as local news. With his ever increasing output of printed works he built up a reputation as a master of the first rank who introduced technical improvements, notably in the design of the printing case. He wrote often to the Printers’ Register and he revised the proofs of South-ward’s Dictionary of Typography. The first was the little Albion Press, which was given to the old County Museum.

If the dictionaries made his name a familiar one throughout Wales, it is the less ambitious “Carmarthen and Its Neighbourhood” that has endeared William Spurrell to the people of his native town and district. Although he contributed to contemporary journals, his claim to be considered as a local historian rests on this slight volume, which first appeared in 1860, an enlarged edition being brought out in 1879. It cannot in any sense be regarded as a comprehensive history—he probably never intended it to be—but it remained for long the only convenient reference source and is still frequently consulted; without it much would have been lost to memory and the recollections of The Oldest Inhabitant of the day left unrecorded. But in-extensive as his published work is, Spurrell was certainly rated as an antiquarian of supreme worth in his day and evidence of the fact is that when a prize was offered for a history of Carmarthenshire at the National Eisteddfod held at Carmarthen in 1867 the adjudicator, along with Archdeacon Archard Williams, was William Spurrell. The Welshman, in its obituary, said: As an authority on local historical, antiquarian and topographical questions he has left no one behind who can fill his place’. The testimony to his knowledge cannot he doubted, but the belief that there was no one to follow him is surprising in view of the fact that Alcwyn Evans, who had been awarded the gold medal at the Carmarthen National Eisteddfod in 1867, survived him by thirteen years.

Even so local history was a leisure interest, as was literary criticism and, more seriously perhaps, the study of philology, which manifested itself principally in his cultivation of the Welsh language and its literature at a time when it was still unfashionable to use the vernacular. This devotion to the old language showed itself in his frequent attendance at the little School Church in Priory Street, whereto the poor Welsh-speaking folk had been banished from the elitist St. Peter’s Church. He was therefore not afraid to identify himself with Welsh culture when many of his peers and most of his social superiors preferred to be anglicized.

It is of interest to recall that George Eyre Evans was inclined to believe that this anonymous contributor to Spurrell’s book was one John Morgan of Croesyceiliog. Transactions of the Carmarthenshire Antiquarian Society, Vol. 1, p. 102.

He was always a ready supporter of any movement which encouraged the spread of education, especially among the working classes. In 1839 he was one of thirteen who founded the Mechanics’ Institute in a room above the draper’s shop of C. Jones in what is now Hall Street ; soon afterwards the Institute moved to Guildhall Square, where it remained for some years before transferring to the Assembly Rooms when these opened in King Street in 1854. In the meantime it had changed its name to Carmarthen Literary and Scientific Institution, which it retained until World War II, when it became defunct.

William Spurrell was strongly patriotic and was a prime mover in the formation of the Volunteer force in the town. Although he was a staunch Conservative and Churchman, he was always well received by all sections of the community, but he never courted popularity or sought public office; nevertheless he was made a Justice of the Peace for the Borough in 1875 and was Churchwarden of St. Peter’s once or twice.

He married in 1846 and had a large family. On Easter Mon-day 22 April 1889 William Spurrell died in his 76th year, being survived by his wife Sarah, who died in 1911, and a number of children, one of whom, Walter, succeeded him in the business with equal distinction. He was buried in St, David’s Churchyard north-east of the east window, where the grave is marked by an unusual monument about eight feet high, the lower half of which is triangular in plan and the remainder a hexagonal spire. The monument bears the inscription Myfi yw’r edgyfodiad a’r bywyd, medd yr Arglwydd and the epitaph: Take heed unto the thing that is right, for that shall bring a man peace at the last.

Extracted from the Carmarthenshire Historian, published in 1978

Featured image: The memorial to William Spurrell and his family .

This database contains information originally compiled in 1977 prior to the removal and relocation of many of the memorials to the perimeter/boundary wall. Before the memorials relocation, a detailed map was drawn up indicating their actual location (and therefore the grave space) and this map can be viewed here.. Since 1977 many of the memorials have suffered damage and may not be as described in the database. During the continuing restoration phase a number of memorials not recorded in 1977 have come to light due to the fact they were buried beneath the surface. These memorial inscriptions are now being added to the database and the position of the found memorial plotted on the “memorial map” to indicate the approximate location of their last resting place.

Please Note: This advanced database search is for specific information about memorials and graves complied in 1977. Grave numbers are shown in the left column.

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