 To our list of pre-First World War Abbey United players who didn’t survive the war years must be added the name of Alfred Bull. But unlike several of his Abbey teammates who were killed in action on the Western Front, Alfred didn’t die as a result of enemy action. He fell victim to tubercular peritonitis, a bacterial complication of tuberculosis, while he was serving in France and, having been invalided back to England, died at a military hospital in York at the age of 21 on 10 December 1918. Reverend RF Wright, curate of the Abbey Church, conducted the funeral service at the borough cemetery, Newmarket Road four days later. At the graveside were his father – also called Alfred, a labourer at Watts & Son’s timber works (pictured) just along the road – his mother Emily, five brothers and two sisters. Alfred was born in 1897 and lived his early life in Beche Road, where he was a close neighbour of several of the young men who played for Abbey United. There is some evidence that he attended Brunswick Boys’ School, situated just round the corner in Walnut Tree Avenue (pictured at its junction with Newmarket Road). The avenue no longer exists, having been demolished to make way for the 1971 opening of the Elizabeth Way river crossing. We know that by 1911 Alfred was apprenticed to a boot and shoe maker – a fairly common occupation in working-class Cambridge at the time. On the other hand, we can’t be sure that he ever kicked a ball in anger for our young football club. He was named as a reserve for a fixture on Midsummer Common against his father’s employer’s works team in November 1913 (a match won 3-2 by Watts & Sons) but the records don’t reveal if he made an appearance. Unusually for a Barnwell boy, Alfred didn’t enlist in the Cambridgeshire Regiment when war broke out a few months later. Instead, he signed up for the Queen’s Royal (West Surrey) Regiment – sometimes known rather unflatteringly as the Mutton Lancers after their ‘Lamb and Flag’ cap badge. He found himself in France in August 1916 but it’s not known where he was serving when he fell ill. We now know that early antibiotic treatment can relieve the symptoms of tubercular peritonitis, but Alfred was not to receive that succour. If you believe you are a descendant of Alfred’s, or if you know someone who is, please get in touch: [email protected].
A very large proportion of the young men who played for Abbey United in the latter part of 1913 and the first months of 1914 were exposed to the many horrors of the First World War. A few didn’t live to tell the tale. One who did – although he experienced the unimaginable terror of being subjected to a mustard gas attack – was Walter Howlett, resident of Beche Road for his entire life. In July 1917, Walter, like so many of his teammates a private in the Cambridgeshire Regiment, was fighting in the early days of the Third Battle of Ypres, better known as Passchendaele – a conflict that became a byword for mud, blood and futility. Mustard gas, first used by German forces in that month, caused enormous numbers of casualties and many fatalities, not least because its effects, at first slight, were often underestimated. Images of temporarily blinded soldiers being guided to treatment stations are among the most powerful of the entire conflict. Walter recovered and, although he was treated for trench fever in 1918, saw out the war and returned to Cambridge in 1919 – unlike his brothers Frank and William, who were killed in action in 1916 and 1918 respectively. Walter was born in the city in 1894, was baptised at the Abbey Church and lived with his blacksmith father Robert and mother Susannah just round the corner from the church in Beche Road (pictured). After attending the Abbey School and Barnwell Boys’ School, he was apprenticed to a tailor in 1909. We know he played at least once for Abbey United – at left back in a 4-0 win over St Phillip’s in December 1913. We don’t know if he ever played football after the war. He married Priscilla Rolfe, known as Fanny, in 1921 and the couple lived in Walter’s father’s Beche Road house. By the time of the 1939 Register, compiled as another great war loomed, Walter was working as a salesman of flower and vegetable seeds, while Fanny (office cleaner) and their daughter Evelyn (factory worker) were both working at one of the Cambridge area’s largest employers – the Chivers jams and preserves company in Histon. The Howlett family never left Beche Road, and it was there that Walter died in 1961 at the age of 66. Fanny died in Ely ten years later. If you believe you are a descendant of Walter’s, or if you know someone who is, please get in touch: [email protected].  Go behind the scenes as John Taylor leads a group of Cambridge United favourites - Danny Potter, Andy Duncan, Ian Miller, Warren Goodhind, Omer Riza, Wes Hoolahan, Michael Kyd and Dave Kitson - to Germany for the Bretterknaller tournament. Film produced with thanks to Leon Isenberg and Ben McFadyean.  Those who played for Abbey United in 1913 and 1914 were very young, but Bob Codling was an especially youthful player. He was also much too young to be sent off to war in September 1915. Born in June 1899 and baptised in the Abbey Church, Bob was only 14 when he played in the half-back line at least six times for our club – and scored at least three goals – in the months before the outbreak of World War One. The lowest official age for enlistment in the British Army was 19, but such was the need for manpower that recruiters often turned a blind eye to an eager would-be Tommy’s juvenile looks. So it was that Bob was able to join the Cambridgeshire Regiment in the spring of 1915, when he was just 15. By September of that year he was serving in France. Bob was listed as wounded twice – in June 1916 and September 1918 – and it’s probable that he sat out the last weeks of the war far from the front line. As a child he had lived with father Robert, a plasterer born in Great Yarmouth, and Cambridge-born mother Amelia in Beche Road, and attended Barnwell Boys’ School. And it was to Beche Road – on the Abbey Estate between the Abbey Church and the river – that Bob returned after the war. Like his father, he worked in the building trade, qualifying as a carpenter and being admitted to that trade’s union in 1920. By 1921 he was working on the site that later became the National Institute of Agricultural Botany in Huntingdon Road. In 1925, by which time he was working on Cambridge Corporation housing contracts in Vinery and Coleridge Roads and was involved in local politics with the Labour Party, he married Emily Wenham, who had lived not far from Beche Road in Newmarket Road. A change of career was in prospect. The Codlings took over at the much-missed Cow and Calf pub in Pound Hill (pictured) in the 1930s, and they proved popular licensees. Bob, however, still took pride in stating that he was qualified as a carpenter. It was back in Beche Road that he died in 1973. He was laid to rest in the borough cemetery in Newmarket Road, where Emily joined him nine years later. If you believe you are a descendant of Bob’s, or if you know someone who is, please get in touch: [email protected].  Read more about the Cambridgeshire Regiment here
Read more about the National Institute of Agricultural Botany Read more about the Cow and Calf pub If you have any further information concerning the article above or related to the Cowling contact [email protected] Thomas Frederick Tyrrell – let’s call him Tom – played at least three times for Abbey United in the year in which the First World War broke out. He came through the war in one piece and lived a quiet Cambridge life until his death in 1968. But if Tom seldom moved far from his Barnwell birthplace, the same cannot be said for his antecedents. His father William, who when Tom was born in Cambridge in 1899 was custodian of a free library in East Road, was born in Blanchardstown – then a small village north-west of Dublin, now a sizeable suburb. His wife, Emma, was from East Mersea in Essex, and their children were born in places as far-flung as Alderney in the Channel Islands, Mullingar in County Westmeath, York, Pontefract and, nearer home, the fenland village of Reach. Tom was baptised in the year of his birth in the Abbey Church, cradle of our club, and in 1901 the family was living in Nelson Street, which lies buried beneath the Grafton Centre. By the time of his admission to Barnwell Boys’ School in 1908, the Tyrrells had moved to Norfolk Terrace (pictured) below; you can find their house if you wander down Blossom Street off Norfolk Street.  We know that Tom played at left back for Abbey United against Granta United, Old College Choristers and Swifts in early 1914. He may have played more often – we have precious few details of most of Abbey’s matches. Similarly, we don’t know much about his military service during the war, but he may have been the TF Tyrrell who served with the Royal Army Medical Corps. Back in Cambridge, Tom married Edith May Lucas in 1920, and they had at least two daughters. At the time of the 1921 census, he was still living in Norfolk Terrace and was working for a manufacturer of ‘artificial bricks’ (perhaps what we call breeze blocks today; do you know better?) in Devonshire Road. Sad to say, Edith died at the age of just 35 in 1932. By 1939, Tom had moved to nearby Sturton Street and was working as a maltster, maybe at the maltings in Ditton Walk  He was still living in Sturton Street at the time of his death nearly 30 years later.
If you believe you are a descendant of Tom’s, or if you know someone who is, please get in touch: [email protected]. If you have any further information concerning the article above or related to Thomas Tyrrell contact [email protected] Read more about the free library in East Road Read more about Abbey Church, Read more about Royal Army Medical Corps. Read more about Commercial Brewery Co. Ltd,  Anyone researching the life of Charles Griffiths, who played for Abbey United in the 1913-14 season, faces a knotty problem: he didn’t always go by that name. Charles’s father, known to Cambridge folk as Con Griffiths, was born in the Borough, south of London Bridge, under the name of Albert Hawes. His adopted son Charles, born in Walworth in 1894, also went by the Hawes surname. At some point the elder Hawes adopted the Con Griffiths name, moved to Cambridge and, billing himself the ‘champion ten stone wrestler of the world’, started work as wrestling instructor to the university. He’s shown here demonstrating the head creel, a Lancashire wrestling hold. He also ran a series of pubs, ending up at the Butcher’s Arms on Newmarket Road. The Griffiths/Hawes family was living here, almost opposite the Abbey Church, when our club was born. Charles attended Brunswick Boys’ School and by 1911, when he was again going by the Hawes family name, he was working as a general labourer. He played in Abbey United’s forward line in three fixtures, and possibly others, in early 1914. Like so many of his teammates, Charles found himself fighting in France with the Cambridgeshire Regiment early in World War One. On 2 April 1915 he wrote to his parents as his platoon enjoyed a short rest six miles behind the front line: ‘There are some sights to see out here. ‘One town we were in was blown to atoms, not one house standing and the church blown down.’ That unfortunate town may have been Armentières, whose ruined hôtel de ville is pictured below. The town, near Lille on the France-Belgium border, was cited as Charles’s residence when, on home leave in June 1915, he married sweetheart Frances at St Matthew’s Church. He seems to have come through the war unscathed, and it’s possible that his sports career continued. A certain C Griffiths is recorded as running the 440 yards for the Amateur Athletic Association against the university at Fenners in December 1919, and playing football for Wanderers on Parker’s Piece a fortnight later. Charles’s history after the time of the 1921 census – when he, Frances and son Albert were living at 10 Abbey Street – becomes somewhat murky. It’s possible that he changed his name to Bartlett, perhaps his birth mother’s name. If you believe you are a descendant of Charles’s, or if you know someone who is, please get in touch: [email protected]. If you have any further information concerning the article above or related to the Griffiths/Bartlett/Hawes contact [email protected] Read more about the Cambridgeshire Regiment here Read more about Walworth Read more about Armentières, Read more about St Matthew’s Church. Read more about Amateur Athletic Association Read more about Parker’s Piece Read more about Fenners Read more about 1921 census   The haunting tones of the Last Post sounded over the Borough Cemetery, Newmarket Road on 21 November 1916, as Private 1857 Walter Whybrow, former Abbey United player, was laid to rest with military honours.
The 22-year-old, who had enlisted in the Cambridgeshire Regiment two years before, had endured three agonising months after falling victim in August to a German shell on the front line in France, possibly as the Cambridgeshires joined the Battle of the Somme. The blast half-buried him in a trench, and he suffered spinal injuries so severe that he was paralysed from the waist down. By October Walter had been admitted to the the UK’s largest hospital, the King George in Stamford Street, London. This enormous facility consisted of five floors of wards, each extending over an acre and a half; its gift store procured 50,000 to 60,000 cigarettes a week so that each patient could have half a dozen smokes a day. Today’s health professionals would be horrified. Walter died of his wounds at the hospital on November 16. His funeral service, attended by his widowed mother Ellen, brother Ernest and four sisters, was conducted by Rev CF Bouquet, chaplain of the First Eastern General Hospital, which was sited where the University Library now stands. Walter was born in 1894 in Cambridge, son of Ellen and gravel pit foreman George. Growing up at 2 Coldhams Lane, he was baptised in the parish of St Andrew the Less in 1905, on the same day as sisters Lily and Ellen and cousin Horace. In 1911 he was living in the Norfolk village of Stoke Ferry and earning a living as a plumber’s mate, but by late 1913 he was back on home ground and playing for Abbey United. We know that he turned out in at least four games, in a variety of positions including goalkeeper, between November 1913 and April 1914, and that some time in the latter year he signed up for the Cambridgeshires. At the time of his death, Walter was the youngest of four brothers serving in the army: 32-year-old bombardier Edward was in the Royal Horse and Field Artillery; 24-year-old sapper Alfred of the Royal Engineers sustained severe head wounds in battle; and 30-year-old Ernest was in the Royal Army Medical Corps. Apart from Walter, they all survived the war. If you believe you are a descendant of Walter’s, or if you know someone who is, please get in touch: [email protected]. If you have any further information concerning the article above or related to the Wybrow family please contact [email protected] Read more about the Cambridgeshire Regiment here Read more about the Battle of the Somme Read more about the Eastern General Hospital As we’ve seen in this series, some of the young men who played for Abbey United before the First World War didn’t survive the conflict. Others, like Frank Butcher, suffered wounds or disease that meant a return to Blighty before hostilities ceased. Frank – don’t confuse him with the EastEnders character – was discharged from the Cambridgeshire Regiment because of sickness in April 1916, after a few days in the trenches around Neuve Chappelle in Pas-de-Calais, France. After service with the Royal Army Medical Corps on the Isle of Wight, he was back in Cambridge by 1919. As far as can be determined, Frank didn’t play football after the war, but he was an active Abbey United player before it. He turned out in at least two games in January and February 1914 – weeks after he had enlisted in the Cambridgeshires. Born in 1895, he was baptised in the parish of St Andrew the Less – perhaps in the Abbey Church, cradle of our club – and in 1901 was living with two sisters, a brother and his widowed mother Esther, a charwoman, in Leeke Street. After leaving Barnwell Boys’ School, Frank began his working life as a van boy for a grocer and by 1911 was living with his family at 89 Newmarket Road. Older brother Alfred was a milkman and sister Alice was employed as a jam jar washer by Chivers of Histon. Frank’s war service was interrupted in January 1916 by his marriage to Dorothy. Their son Frank was born less than two months later and daughter Peggy followed in 1920. At the time of the 1921 census, the Butcher family was still living at 89 Newmarket Road and Frank, although temporarily lacking work, was employed as a labourer by an East Road painting and decorating firm; Dorothy was picking fruit for Chivers. The Ditton Fields estate (pictured below) was starting to be developed in the mid-1930s, and the family was established there by 1939; Frank was working as a lorry driver at the time. After the Second World War, a move out of Barnwell saw the Butchers crossing the Cam to live in Hawthorn Way. Frank died at the age of 73 in 1968, four years after Dorothy had been laid to rest.  A nice footnote to the story is related by Stefanie Butcher, whose grandad Ron, a nephew of Frank’s, was the last keeper of Jesus Lock and lived until about 1996 in the lovely old lock house on Jesus Green (pictured below picture credit Geograph/Richard Sutcliffe)  If you have any further information concerning the article above or related to the Butcher family please contact [email protected] Read more about the Cambridgeshire Regiment here Read more about the Royal Army Medical Corps here Read more about Chivers here Forever we remember those who died during the World Wars and played for Abbey United      |
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