Davies Family in Box Paul Davies March 2022
Mount Pleasant is the house on the right of the Oatley workshop (photo courtesy Box Parish Council)
I have many memories of Box. I was born there and lived in the village until I was 21, that is 55 years ago. My mother and father lived there until they died, dad dying in 2011, so I was kept abreast with what was going on.
Davies Family
The first of the Davies family to arrive in Box were my grandmother, Lily Davies and her daughter also Lily. My grandmother was born a Stephens, who were originally from Cornwall, and was born in Swansea 20 March1878. She married my grandfather Percy Garfield Huzzey Davies who was employed in the family cabinet-making business and was injured during the First World War for which he received a pension, dying of cancer in 1932.
The first of the Davies family to arrive in Box were my grandmother, Lily Davies and her daughter also Lily. My grandmother was born a Stephens, who were originally from Cornwall, and was born in Swansea 20 March1878. She married my grandfather Percy Garfield Huzzey Davies who was employed in the family cabinet-making business and was injured during the First World War for which he received a pension, dying of cancer in 1932.
Fred and Margaret's marriage in 1944 (courtesy Paul Davies)
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My uncle Percy, one of three older brothers of my father, was in the army and stationed in the vicinity. He heard of a house which he thought would be suitable for his mother and sister away from the bombs falling in Swansea. This house was called Mount Pleasant on Quarry Hill. The property was owned by the Oatley family and had previously been part of the Box furniture store occupied by Charles William Bond Oatley.
My grandmother moved into the house in the 1940s and died there in November 1945 (the first person to be buried in the new part of the Box Cemetery). The house was in an unusual location, close to Quarry Woods and flanked by the workshop on one side and the Plymouth Brethren Chapel on the other. The daughter Lily married Alfred E (Ted) Head in 1946 and they lived at Mount Pleasant for a short time. My cousin Derek wrote an article about the Head and Chandler families in an earlier issue. My father Frederick C Davies, was a Leading Stoker in the Royal Navy during the war and met my mother, Margaret Ellen Simpkins (1923-1992), whilst on leave. They married in 1944 and, rather unusually for wartime, their wedding was reviewed in the local newspaper.[1] They lived with my grandparents, Harry and Alice Blanche Rosina Simpkins, at Barn Piece, before being the first occupants of 23 Bargates in 1950. My parents lived there for the rest of their lives, my mother dying in 1992 and my father in 2011. Both ashes were interred in Box Cemetery. |
My father worked for Murray & Baldwin, tennis racquet manufacturers, and following their closure Vickers Super Marine at Trowbridge. then for them at Swindon and ended up at Westinghouse at Chippenham. My father is in the photo of the football team, he is the one with the ball.
Frederick Davies holding the ball (photo courtesy Len Shewring)
My mother, Margaret Simpkins of Barn Piece, was in the Box Girl Guides, which you also featured in a recent article - Robin Patrol, I believe. Later in her life, she worked for the grocery shop Astons in The Parade, Market Place, Box for a few years.
The shop was later run by Keith and Carla Pask who changed the shop from a Spar Store into County Stores.
The shop was later run by Keith and Carla Pask who changed the shop from a Spar Store into County Stores.
Family outside Mount Pleasant: Margaret Simpkins {later Davies}, Lily Davies {later Head}, Edith Sephens (my grandmother's youngest sister) and my grandmother Liy. Front two unknown (courtesy Paul Davies)
Other Family Members
Percy was demobbed and lived at Mount Pleasant for a short time before moving into the nearby cottage, Greyholme. Percy was a civil servant and worked at the army munitions store at Monkton Farleigh until it closed in the 1960s when he was transferred to Donnington in Shropshire, dying in 1972. Percy was involved in several village activities and was a sidesman at the church.
My grandfather, Harry Simpkins of Barn Piece, started work as a sort of dogs-body for Charles Oatley, going to auctions, house clearances and driving his gig. Harry was in the men’s Surgical Ward of St Martin’s Hospital when Mr Arthur Brooke of 2 Mead Villas had his leg amputated. My grandfather was astonished and delighted when Mr Brooke walked from his home to Barn Piece some months later.
In your story of the Box Guides, you also talk about Constance Betty Hancock. I believe that she was the daughter of Joseph Hancock, the brother of my great grandfather, Charles Hancock. My mother used to talk about a daughter, who I think may have been adopted. This daughter went to become a nun (what denomination I don't know) and, according to my mother, the hard life broke her health.
Percy was demobbed and lived at Mount Pleasant for a short time before moving into the nearby cottage, Greyholme. Percy was a civil servant and worked at the army munitions store at Monkton Farleigh until it closed in the 1960s when he was transferred to Donnington in Shropshire, dying in 1972. Percy was involved in several village activities and was a sidesman at the church.
My grandfather, Harry Simpkins of Barn Piece, started work as a sort of dogs-body for Charles Oatley, going to auctions, house clearances and driving his gig. Harry was in the men’s Surgical Ward of St Martin’s Hospital when Mr Arthur Brooke of 2 Mead Villas had his leg amputated. My grandfather was astonished and delighted when Mr Brooke walked from his home to Barn Piece some months later.
In your story of the Box Guides, you also talk about Constance Betty Hancock. I believe that she was the daughter of Joseph Hancock, the brother of my great grandfather, Charles Hancock. My mother used to talk about a daughter, who I think may have been adopted. This daughter went to become a nun (what denomination I don't know) and, according to my mother, the hard life broke her health.
Constance Hancock (courtesy Genevieve Horne)
There is another connection with my family because in your photograph of the Box Mothers’ Union Banner, the woman standing to the left of the Hon Mrs Shaw Mellor, is Maria Hancock, Constance’s mother. My grandmother, Alice Blanche Rosina Simpkins (nee Hancock), used to take me to visit her when I was small.
Unveiling of Mothers' Union banner in 1933 (photo courtesy Eric Callaway)
My sister Ann and I both married and moved away from Box. We now live in the Radstock/Midsomer Norton area. My cousins Richard and Derek Head both live at Melksham so none of the family live in Box any more.
Reference
[1] The Wiltshire Times, 10 June 1944
[1] The Wiltshire Times, 10 June 1944