Walter Evans
Walter Evans
Walter Evans was born on 19 March 1883 in Styal, Cheshire, one of five children of William and Elizabeth Evans.
In the 1901 Census he is living with his parents at Manor House Cottage in Chelford, Cheshire. He is working as a garden boy for Reginald Tatton of the Manor House and his father William is Mr Tatton's gardener. Also a member of of Mr. Tatton's domestic staff is a young lady called Winifred Maries who is working as a housemaid. The couple must have known each other for nearly ten years before they finally married in the bride's home parish of Blunham in Bedfordshire on 14 July 1910.
By the time of the 1911 Census, Walter and Winifred are living at 6 Shrewsbury Terrace, Totley, along with Walter's younger brother Frank. Both men are working as market gardeners.
On 26 June 1911 Walter and Winifred's first child was born - a daughter named Julian Muriel. A second child, a son named Wilfred George, arrived on 28 January 1913 When war broke out in August 1914 Walter remained in Totley still working as a market gardener and by this time he also had a small grocery shop on Hillfoot Road.
However, on 10 December 1915 he enlisted in Sheffield with the 5th South Staffordshire Regiment. He is described as being 5 ft. 7 1/2 ins. tall and weighing 151 pounds. He remained in England during 1916 and most of the following year but in February 1917 he was transferred to the Machine Gun Corps. On 1 November 1917 Walter was promoted to the rank of Lance Corporal and by 15 November 1917 he had landed in France with the 49th Battalion Machine Gun Corps. He fought in various battles including Estaires, Messines, Hazebrouk, Bailleul, Kemmel Ridge and Bethune - all phases of the Fourth Battle of Ypres.
Just before Christmas 1917 he received tragic news; his little son Wilfred George had died of scarlet fever on 17 December. There is no indication that Walter was granted any compassionate leave and it isn't until late October 1918 that he is granted leave to England. Unfortunately most of this leave was spent in the Northern General Hospital On 7 November he was admitted suffering from influenza, the dreaded Spanish flu which claimed so many lives during 1918-19. Walter was discharged on 23 November and by the 27th he was back with his unit in France. However, the guns were silent after the Armistice agreement of 11 November and by March 1919 he had been demobbed and was back to civilian life.
On 1 July 1920 a new member of the family was born, a son called Eric Walter. For some years Walter continued to run the grocer's shop on Hillfoot Road. Eventually he moved to a new shop at the top of Main Avenue and his brother Frank took over the Hillfoot Road shop.
Sometime in the 1940s, Walter and Winifred retired and moved to Bakewell. Winifred died there on 11 May 1961. Walter died in 1972 at the age of 89.
Grocery Account Book cover
Whilst sorting through some of his late father's possessions, Craig Newbould came across an old grocery account book which must have belonged to a previous owner of the house at Summerville, 21 The Quadrant, Totley.
The account book was issued to a Mrs. Dye by Walter Evans, the grocer who had a shop on Hillfoot Lane and later at the top of Main Avenue. Craig very kindly scanned images of the pages which make fascinating reading, showing the day to day purchases of an ordinary family and the costs of those goods between 26 April 1929 and 13 September the following year.
Specimen page from the account book.
Many of the brand names will be familiar to you like HP sauce, Ty-phoo tea, Rowntree's cocoa, Spratt's Ovals dog biscuits, Harpic cleaner, Lux toilet soap, Cherry Blossom shoe polish and Mansion wax polish. Others may be less familiar like Egrol custard powder, Dainty Dinah toffees, and New-Pin soap. Craig was curious to know whether we could find out anything about Mrs. Dye who may well have been the first occupant of the house which was built circa 1926.
After a bit of research, we have found that the occupants of the house were Fred and Elsie Dye. Fred Dye was a draughtsman and estimator who was born in Middlesbrough on 4 September 1899. He was the eldest son of William Henry Dye, a portable crane driver, and his wife Mary Elizabeth Dye, nee Mills. Fred served in WW1 with firstly the Northumberland Fusiliers and later the 15th Durham Light Infantry. Evidently he was a bugler and the photograph below is said to have been taken whilst Fred was on parade in the Occupied Rhineland in 1919.
Buglar Fred Dye on parade, Cologne, 12 August 1919.
Elsie was born Elsie Stubbs on 9 October 1900, in Sunderland. She was the younger daughter of William Rawdon Stubbs, a piano dealer's salesman and his wife Annie Elizabeth Stubbs, nee Middlebrook. Fred and Elsie were married in Middlesbrough in the third quarter of 1924.
We don't know when they moved to Totley but they were still living at 21 The Quadrant at the time of their deaths, Fred on 1 September 1952 and Elsie on 1 May 1979. The couple appear to have had no children.