QUINTON WYATT 

One of the three Commonwealth War Graves Commission headstones in Charlton Mackrell churchyard, overlooking the former Rectory ‘The Court’, reads simply “20564 Private Q.C. WYATT, South Staffordshire Regiment” with no family inscription and no evidence of any local connection. Because he was buried at Charlton Mackrell on 13th November 1918, his name appears on The Charltons War Memorial (but nowhere else in our parish) and, though born in Gloucestershire, he is named on the War Memorial at Sandbach in Cheshire too and remembered on the WW1 Roll of Honour and Memorial Board in the parish church there (also dedicated to St Mary).

There are a few records of families named Wyatt in The Charltons including some basket-makers in the 1860s and 1870s and a Benjamin Wyatt is listed in Kelly’s Directories from 1910 to 1923 as a ‘Private Resident’ at Stower Cottage, Charlton Mackrell. However, those family origins appear to be the Somerset/Devon border not Gloucestershire and we have so far been unable to find anything to link Quinton Charles Wyatt to our villages apart from the Fosse Way and his death from influenza here on Armistice Day.

Quinton’s death was registered on 12 Nov 1918 and the certificate shows that ‘Quentin’ Charles Wyatt, aged 25 years was a “Motor lorry driver, ex-Private South Staffordshire Regiment”, so probably only passing through The Charltons when he fell ill. The cause of his death was “Influenza (8 days), pneumonia and heart failure (5 days)”. Although we had hoped this would show where he was resident, the informant was his ‘mother’, E.A. Wyatt, who gave her address as Hope Street, Sandbach, Cheshire. In fact, this appears to have been his step-mother Edith who in the 1939 Register was a widowed retired district nurse still living at the same address in Sandbach - hence the memorials there.

In the 1901 UK census, the only Quinton\Quentin WYATT in the country was aged 7 and living in the hamlet of Coates, near Cirencester, with his widowed father William, who was an agricultural labourer aged 36, and a sister Agnes aged 8. Her birthplace, like Quinton, was stated as Hampnett, just off the Fosse Way north-west of Northleach. There is a baptism record for Quinton Charles Wyatt, son of Elizabeth Ellen and William John Wyatt (a labourer) at Coln Roger, just a few miles south of Northleach, on 23 August 1893. The unusual spelling of his name may be taken from the parish of Quinton on the county border south of Stratford-on-Avon, where Wyatt families were farmers.

Sadly, sources indicate that Quinton’s early life was difficult and that his father William had financial difficulties and a violent temper. Newspaper announcements also show that when Quinton was only two and a half years old, his mother Elizabeth Ellen (nee Mills) had died on 13th February 1896, aged just 25. The family then appears to have moved around and in 1907 there was an advertisement appealing for news of William and the children.

However, in 1911 Quinton, aged 17, was working as the ‘third carter’ on a farm at Hampnett again, although his sister Agnes was away working as a servant at Bishops Castle in Shropshire and his father was a farm shepherd, but living in a lodging house at Droitwich without his wife (after re-marrying at Worcester in 1901).

When Quinton enlisted in the 11th Battalion of the South Staffordshire regiment at Rugeley Camp on 20th November 1915, he was 22 years and 4 months old, a waggoner, living at Church Street, Brownhills, near Walsall. He stated that his father William John Wyatt’s address was then Alexander Dock, Cardiff.

Quinton Wyatt’s military service records show:

Home 20/11/15 to 14/3/16 (so awarded Victory and British war medals only)

France, serving in the 8th battalion, 15/3/16 to 5/9/17 (wounded)

Home 6/9/17 to 26/12/17, when discharged as ‘no longer physically fit for War Service’

On 6/8/1919 Quinton’s war gratuity was paid to his father William, who died in 1930.

Quinton’s older sister Agnes May Wyatt also enrolled to serve in WW1. She had moved further away and worked as a shop assistant in North Wales but was at Holmes Chapel in Cheshire (close to Sandbach) when she joined the Queen Mary's Army Auxiliary Corps as a clerk on 22nd June 1918. Agnes was based at Folkestone until she was discharged on medical grounds on 8th November 1918, just a few days before her brother’s death. In 1926 she married Albert Iles at Hampnett and lived in Gloucestershire to the age of 87.

To date, no photograph of Quinton Charles Wyatt has been traced and we are not aware of anyone from The Charltons who has a family story about this man or knows where he was staying when he fell ill and died, but he is remembered by name every year.



Crewe Chronicle, Saturday, November 16, 1918 listed Quintons death.


The Cheshire Roll of Honour would like thank Celia Mycock, The Charltons Historical Society, for the information on Quinton.