George Sparrow Masters and Mary Pope

St Peter's Church, Liverpool Grove, Walworth
cc-by-sa/2.0 - © Peter Trimming - geograph.org.uk/p/5304270

George Sparrow Masters (bap. 26 May 1811 St Mary's, Rotherhithe), son of Benjamin Searle Sparrow Masters and Sage Boulton Ayres, married Mary Pope at St Peter's Church, Walworth, Surrey on 4 Dec 1833.

George and Mary Masters had one daughter:

1. Caroline Masters b. 1837 D Quarter in OF SAINT GEORGE THE MARTYR SOUTHWARK Volume 04 Page 107

In 1851, George Masters (40) Coach maker from Rotherhithe, Surrey; Mary Masters (45) and Caroline Masters (13) School teacher - both listed as from London - were at 41 New Canal Street, Birmingham, Warwickshire.

George Sparrow Masters, it appears, probably died in 1860 S Quarter in BIRMINGHAM Volume 06D Page 91, though his age was listed as 55.

In 1861, Mary Masters (49) Widow, from Hampshire was a Lodging house keeper at 23, Daniel Street, Bathwick, Bath, Somerset and living with her were Caroline Masters (23) born in Southwark, Surrey; and Eliza Shell (19) House Servant from Bath, Somerset. (Widow Masters may be long gone, but you can still lodge at 23, Daniel Street, Bathwick, with Sykes Cottages.)

(Didn't find the family anywhere in 1841. There's a possible marriage of Caroline Masters, in bath in 1861, but [as yet] I've been unable to find further records to confirm if this is her. I've also not been able to isolate further records for Mary Masters: In 1851, she had been listed as being from London; but in 1861, Hampshire. She also only managed to age by four years in the intervening decade, therefore, it hasn't been possible to determine where she was really from and when, to be able to be sure of the right records.)

© Stephen Richards (cc-by-sa/2.0) geograph.org.uk/p/3830761
19-36 Daniel Street, Bath

John Winship Soppit and Mary Ellen Bradley

Sangley Rd, Lewisham
cc-by-sa/2.0 - © N Chadwick - geograph.org.uk/p/3162332

John Winship Soppit (b. 1 Mar 1882 in Greenwich), son of John Soppit and Louisa Tompson married Mary Ellen Finch, at St Lawrence, Catford (built in 1887, demolished in 1968) on 24 Sep 1904. Born Mary Ellen Bradley in 1872 M Quarter in YORK Volume 09D Page 12, she was the illegitimate daughter of Mary Elizabeth Bradley. Following her mother's marriage to George Henry Finch she was known as Mary Ellen Finch. [Source]

John and Mary Ellen had three daughters:

1. Dorothy Louisa Soppit b. 18 Aug 1906 in LAMBETH Vol 01D Page 471
2. Hilda Mary Soppit b. 14 Aug 1908 in LAMBETH Vol 01D Page 477
3. Kate Winship Soppit b. 12 Oct 1910 in Lewisham 

The records for the first two girls show the mother's maiden name as Finch. 

In 1911, living at 78 Sangley Road, Lewisham, were John Winship Soppit (29) Joiner from Deptford; Mary Ellen Soppit (36) with birthplace listed as York; Dorothy Louisa Soppit (4) birthplace Brixton; Hilda Mary Soppit (2) birthplace Brixton and Kate Winship Soppit (0) born in Catford.

In 1917, then actually 35 (not 33 as listed) John Winship Soppit enlisted (was probably conscripted) into the Royal Army Medical Corps (RAMC) at the 4th General Hospital, Birmingham. [See more at: Birmingham’s Military Hospitals] At the time of his discharge he was a nursing orderly. [Source]

In 1921, John Winship Soppit (39) Commercial Traveller was a visitor in the household of his brother, Joseph at 175, George Lane, Lewisham; while Mary Ellen Soppit (39ish) was living at 107 Reservoir Rd, Erdington, Birmingham with George Alfred Finch (41) Commercial Traveller (Brother), Dorothy Louisa Soppit (14), Hilda Mary Soppit (12) and Kate Winship Soppit (10).

Mary Ellen Soppit died, aged 51, in 1924 D Quarter in BIRMINGHAM NORTH Volume 06D Page 486 and was buried 13 Oct 1924 at the church of St Barnabas, Erdington, Birmingham.

John Winship Soppit (46), Widower, Commercial Traveller of 107 Reservoir Rd, Erdington, Birmingham, then remarried to Mary Baker (née Morrell), Widow (43), daughter of William Jabez Morrell and Sarah Waldron, at the Parish Church in Erdington, Birmingham (St Barnabas' Church, Erdington) on 8 Dec 1928. (Her first husband Samuel Horatio Baker had died in 1925 and she had at least two sons from that previous marriage.)

Second wife, Mary Soppit, died, aged 65, on 13 Jul 1950 (1950 S Quarter in BIRMINGHAM Volume 09C Page 15).

John Winship Soppit died, in Birmingham, on 6 May 1969. The death notice in The London Gazette gives his address as 15 Homecroft Rd, Yardley, Birmingham. It's ironic that growing up in Birmingham in the 1960's, at times we'd have been mere streets from there, while my mother felt as 'a fish out of water' in that city. If only she'd known she had blood relatives so close.

• Dorothy Louisa Soppit died in DOR Q2/1989 in BIRMINGHAM (0611K) Volume 32 Page 1041
• Hilda M Soppit married James F Lawless, in Birmingham, in 1933. James Frederick Lawless (bap. Jacobus Fredericus Lawless at the Roman Catholic parish of Most Holy Sacrament & St Osburg, in Coventry, in 1908.) The couple don't appear to have had children. In 1939, they lived at 286 Chester Road, Hardwick (286 Chester Road, Streetly, Sutton Coldfield). James Frederick Lawless died in 1980 in Carmarthen. Hilda Mary Lawless of 15 Homecroft Road, Yardley, Birmingham died, aged 86, on 18 Mar 1994 at Lapworth Nursing Home, Chessetts Wood Road, Solihull and was buried at Yardley Cemetery & Crematorium, on 25 Mar 1994.
• Kate Winship Soppit died in DOR Q3/1998 in SOLIHULL.

It's evident, therefore, that neither Dorothy, nor Kate ever married.

Charley Stone and Ellen Jones

St George's Church, Tiverton

Charley Stone (known as 'Char') (b. 6 Jun 1898 in Tiverton, Devon), son of Charles Stone and Emma Middleton, married Ellen Jones (Nell) (b. 23 Apr 1894 in Rushbrooke, Cobh (Queenstown as it was then), County Cork, Ireland), daughter of David Jones and Laura Elizabeth White, on 3 Jul 1922, at St George's Church, Tiverton (generally considered to be the finest Georgian church in Devon, and one of the best examples in England.) Witnesses were Francis Stone, the groom's uncle; William Henry Middleton, the groom's elder half-brother and their mother, Emily Stone (former Emma Middleton). Given that line up, my feeling is that Bill was best man, while Frank gave away the bride as her own father was back in Ireland.

Charley Stone born 6 Jun 1898 at 1 Silver Street, Tiverton, and baptised on 20 Jul 1898 at St Peter’s Church Tiverton, lied about his age when he enlisted in the Royal Marines at Exeter on 18 Jan 1915, which is why this and many subsequent records suggest he was born a year earlier in 1897. The marines can't ever have discovered the one year discrepancy though, because his record notes the 139 days he was underage, from 18 Jan 1915 to 5 Jun 1915, but 6 Jun 1915 will only have been his 17th birthday, not his 18th.

(The photo, right, must have been taken, in Plymouth, very close to the end of his career, because the four medals he was awarded and can be seen wearing were: the British War Medal and the Victory Medal for WWI; he was awarded the Long Service and Good Conduct Medal on 20 Jul 1930; and on 7 May 1935 he received the King's Silver Jubilee Medal.)

Char did his training at the Royal Marine Depot, Deal, until 18 Aug 1915. Then after a brief period at Plymouth Division, was assigned to HMS Revenge (06) on 1 Feb 1916 and stayed with this ship until 24 Jan 1918, being promoted to Corporal on the 1st day of that year, at age 19.

Revenge (left) and the battleship Hercules (right) at the Battle of Jutland

Consequently, on 31 May - 1 Jun 1916, just five days before his 18th birthday, Charley Stone took part in the Battle of Jutland, the largest naval battle of the First World War. "In the course of the battle, Revenge had fired 102 rounds from her main battery [...]. She also fired 87 rounds from her secondary guns. She was not hit by any fire during the engagement."

British battleship HMS Glory at Murmansk

From 23 May 1918, until 16 Jul 1919, Char was assigned to HMS Glory (1899), of the British North Russia Squadron, which took him to Archangel and Murmansk during the North Russia intervention. "Glory was based at Archangel to protect supplies that arrived there for the Russian Army. The squadron's mission evolved after the Bolshevik Revolution in 1917 into preventing the supplies that had been delivered from falling into the hands of the Red Army." He arrived just in time for A Fire, a Riot, a Bombing, and a Mutiny. Like most who went through these events, Char never spoke about his experiences, except to a brother who was also a Marine, and what I've been told only intimated that things were really bad (understatement) up there.

The Allied Intervention at Archangel and Murmansk in 1918

HMS Royalist (1883)

Continuing his amazing ability to turn up in all the wrong places at the right times, from 12 Feb 1920 to 15 Mar 1922 Char was sent to HMS Colleen (formerly HMS Royalist (1883)), which was then the depot ship at Queenstown (Cobh), Ireland, at the height of the Irish War of Independence. Being hulked (stuck in one place), allowed more opportunity to fraternise with the locals, obviously. The 1921 Census shows Charley Stone (24) [i.e. still maintaining he was a year older than he really was], Corporal R M L I, was with the Royal Navy, Armed Forces Overseas.

Nell and Char's only child, Charles Francis Stone (Frank) was born, on 17 July 1923 at The Military Families Hospital, Devonport and christened at The Anglican Church of Saint Paul, Durnford Street, East Stonehouse on Sunday, 5 Aug 1923. This was the day after the wedding of Char's first cousin Frederick Thomas Stone and Kathleen Mullarkey, at which Char was best man and could have been the new baby's first "social engagement" - not that he'd have remembered it - but it feels like a real connection to the past to imagine that maybe Maria Mullarkey, the bride's mother, may have fawned over the new infant (as you do). The family's address then was 36, Admiralty Street, East Stonehouse (flat above presumably). Now The Fig Tree Restaurant, this was once a shop.

Eastern Kings Battery, Plymouth, taken Friday, 30 June, 2023
cc-by-sa/2.0 - © Alan Murray-Rust - geograph.org.uk/p/7538232
This was built on the site of a late 18th century battery in 1849 as the Prince of Wales Battery and includes later alterations up to WW2, such as the observation post visible in the view.
Still in military occupation. Designated a Scheduled Monument.

The rest of Char's Royal Marines' career was spent mostly at Plymouth Division - they lived in the Eastern King battery (dad said it was damp and cold), where Frank and his cousins played football on the landings, climbed on the roof and generally got into trouble - and at HMS Impregnable training establishments in Devonport: the former HMS Black Prince (1861) in late 1922 and the former HMS Ganges (1821) in 1923/24. Char was promoted to Sergeant from 9 Aug 1924, Colour sergeant from 2 Apr 1931, and Quartermaster sergeant (QMS) in Aug 1932, retiring on 5 Jun 1936.

Charley Stone's uniform tunic now in the possession of the Royal Marines Museum

Here's an exhibit you wouldn't see on display, even if the Royal Marines Museum wasn't currently homeless, so I consider myself fortunate that I was able to visit when it was still housed in the former officers’ mess on the Eastney Barracks (reportedly to be turned into a five-star hotel) a few years ago and had made arrangements for a private viewing of the tunic pictured.

Nell and Char's only child, Charles Francis Stone (Frank), aged around three.

Nell and Char on their
25th Wedding Anniversary
in 1947, in the garden of 117,
Corisande Road, Selly Oak.

After he retired from the Royal Marines, Char took a job as a Post Office Van Driver in Birmingham, which is where we find the family in 1939, at 117 Corisande Road, Selly Oak with Charley Stone, Postman Driver (Heavy Work) still listing himself as a year older and Ellen still trying to close the four year age gap and be two years younger. Frank (16) was working as a Stationery clerk at the Screw Works.

Char had worked as a gardener before he'd joined the marines, having worked in the kitchen garden at Knightshayes Court in Tiverton. In Birmingham, he grew soft fruits - I remember being sent up the garden to pick raspberries and blackcurrants - and he had a greenhouse stuffed full of his favourite fuchsias that, in his Devon accent were always pronounced foosherrs.

Charley Stone died on 10 May 1973 at Selly Oak Hospital. He was 75.

Ellen Stone died on 31 Jan 1993 in Highcliffe, Dorset (DOR Q1/1993 in BOURNEMOUTH (4271A) Reg A2D Entry Number 254), in her 99th year, although the death certificate doesn't reflect that because at that time we'd actually had no idea exactly when or even where she had been born.