(last updated 10 June 2021)
Thomas and Robert Kersley came from the small Hampshire village of Mapledurwell located a little to the south of the town of Basingstoke and a handful of miles from Steventon, the birthplace of the celebrated English novelist Jane Austen (born there in 1775). Their father, William Kersley, was baptised at Mapledurwell on 12 May 1793. According to the local parish registers William was 'the base born son of Sarah [Kersley] by Robert Fewel' (or Fowel, the writing was difficult to decipher). Gaye Dunn believes that Sarah later married Robert. Another Kersley researcher, Nigel Gerdes, tells us that Robert's surname was Powel and that Sarah 'went on to marry 29 May 1794 at Herriard a widower Richard Wise and had four additional children'. Nigel adds that 'Richard Wise was born 4 Dec 1756 and baptised 11 Jan 1757 at Herriard. His first wife was Hannah Platt who he married 7 Jan 1779 at Upper Nately, Hants. They had six children and she died in 1793. Richard Wise died in 1824 and was buried 20 Jan 1824 at Herriard'.
We think Sarah was the daughter of Joseph Kersley (1744-1814) and Mary Wigmore (buried in Mapledurwell in 1810). Joseph was probably the youngest son of Richard and Elizabeth Kersley (nee Staples). An extract from a book on Lasham and Herriard sent to me by Gaye Dunn indicates that Richard moved from Winslade in Hampshire to Herriard after he married Elizabeth Staples there in September 1731. Another of Richard's sons, George Kersley, was said to own Hale Farm which he inherited rather than bought. George married three times, first to Jane Rout, then Elizabeth Cooper and finally to Sarah Blunden (in 1787). By this time the farm, which had passed to George's first son (also George), had to be sold in order to pay off the family's creditors. 'From then on', the book continues, 'life became very different and it showed in the lifestyle of the children born to George and Sarah' who had to work as labourers and ploughmen. As we will see, this would also be so for the descendants of George's brother Joseph.
Joseph Kersley married Mary Wigmore in Herriard in 1762 and moved to Mapledurwell some time later. Gaye Dunn has Joseph's children as: William (1764-1847), Mary (1767-), John (1770-), Sarah (1773-), George (1774-), Ann (1778-), Elizabeth (1781-), Charlotte (1785-1842) and James Kersley (1789-1824). The Mapledurwell parish registers confirm that Ann, Elizabeth and Charlotte Kersley were baptised there in 1778, 1781 and 1785 respectively. The other children were not mentioned and so may have been born at Herriard. The list of burials at Herriard obtained from GenWeb shows that although they lived at Mapledurwell, Joseph and Mary were buried at Herriard (on 5 June 1814 and 6 March 1810 respectively).
The Mapledurwell Parish Church
The Phillamore listings for Hampshire and the Mapledurwell parish registers show that a number of Joseph and Mary's children were married at Mapledurwell: Mary Kersley married John Slater on 14 February 1788; William Kersley married Sarah Hall on 1 November 1790; Charlotte Kersley married Thomas Gidge on 24 April 1806; and Ann Kersley married Robert Gary on 17 November 1808. Their brother John Kersley married Hannah Wise at Herriard on 2 October 1800. According to Maureen Sharpe, the marriage allegations for Hampshire show that a further brother, George Kersley a 21 year-old yeoman from Mapledurwell, married Mary Bentham, also 21, of Upper Nately at Upper Nately in 1806. The various couples and their families are listed on my Kersley/Laurence family tree maintained on Rootsweb (an internet listing for the Wild, Batchelor and Hewlett families in Hampshire also provides details of Charlotte Kersley and Thomas Gidge's children who were all baptised at Old basing between 1806 and 1826).
Although still to be confirmed we think it likely that one of Joseph and Mary's numerous grandsons was a Joseph Kersley (1819-96) who had been born at Herriard but lived most of his adult life at nearby Ellisfield where he married a local girl, Emma Franklin (1838-1918), in 1861. According to Ann Haddrell-Knight's 'Knight Family Tree' on Ancestry, Emma and Joseph, who worked as a shepherd and agricultural labourer, had at least seven children all born at Ellisfield: William (born in 1861), Hannah (1862), Charlotte (1864-1935), Julia Ann (1866-1933), Eliza (1870), Thomas Henry (1874-1959) and Edith Dora Kersley (1882-1959). 
Their two youngest children, Thomas and Edith, married two Oliver siblings - Theresa Annie (1879-1933) and Harry Henry Oliver (1881-1959) - in Hampshire in 1897 and 1902 respectively. Theresa and Harry's parents were Henry (Harry) Oliver (1847-1911), a thatcher by trade, and his second wife, Rachel Blake (1851-1916), who he married in the Winchester RD of Hampshire in 1875. The UK 1901 census shows that before her marriage to Harry Oliver, Edith was working as a cook for a Margaret de Winton-Corry and her daughter at Yately in Hampshire. The photo on the left, which was sent to us by Rosemary Wright, shows Edith outside her and Harry's cottage on Bagmore Lane in Herriard.
One of Harry and Edith's granddaughters, Rosemary Wright nee Oliver (who knew her grandmother as Elizabeth not Edith Kersley), tells us Edith and Harry 'had around twelve children some of whom are buried in the churchyard at Herriard'. She also remembers her father - Sidney Victor Oliver (1914-94) - saying 'his parents almost didn't get married because Edith/Elizabeth's family were land owners/farmers and my grandfather had left the army and was working on the railways and was not considered a suitable match!'. Rosemary adds that her father Sidney's siblings included 'Ron, Ray, Derek, Edward, Dorothy, Helen and Beda [Oliver]. There were several more that did not survive childhood but I don't know their names . . . Ron emigrated to Australia after the Second World War and married an Australian girl'.
The Catherine House records show Ronald Oliver, who was born in the Basingstoke RD of Hampshire in 1923, married Beryl Olive Blake at Aldershot in 1947. Three years later the young couple and their infant son, Kenneth Oliver, sailed from Southampton on the ASTURIAS bound for Australia (the Catherine House records show a Kenneth B. Oliver - whose mother's maiden name was Blake - was born at Aldershot in July 1949). The shipping records indicated their final destination was 36 Lachlan Road Cardiff - Beryl's family home - near Newcastle in New South Wales. Her father's death certificate, a copy of which is contained on Megan Barker's 'Elizabeth Burns Family Tree' on Ancestry, shows Beryl was the seventh child of Harold Ernest Blake (1888-1945) and Alice Helen Noreen Hansen (1892-1977) who were married at Newcastle in Australia in 1916 and had eleven children in addition to Beryl. Harold's grandfather, Thomas Blake (1809-77), was a native of Portsea in Hampshire and a transportee. After receiving his ticket of leave in May 1839, Thomas married a fellow convict, Ann Walsh, at Newcastle the following year. They lived at Molong in central western NSW where Thomas died in 1877. The Australian electoral rolls show Beryl and Ronald Oliver, who worked as a railway porter and later a house painter, lived first on William and then Gimbert Street in Cardiff (the 1972 roll has a Kenneth Bruce Oliver, patternmaker, also living at Gimbert Street). The Ryerson Index tells us Ronald Percy Oliver, then aged 82 years and 'late of Cardiff South', died on 25 February 2006. According to the 'Rutter Family Tree' on Ancestry he and Beryl had a daughter as well as their son Ken.
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Sent to us by Rosemary Wright, these photos are of her grandparents, Harry and Edith/Elizabeth Oliver nee Kersley, and their family. L/R: Harry and Dorothy,
Edith and Harry and some of their children, Harry with Dorothy and Beda, Edith and Sidney, and Sidney in uniform during the Second World War.
Our Thomas and Robert Kersley's mother was Letitia Prince (1784-1836), the daughter of Thomas (1748-1818) and Mary Prince (1752-1822) of Mapledurwell. Nigel Gerdes tells us that Mary's maiden name was Mears and that she and Thomas were married at Old Basing in Hampshire on 12 December 1772. The LDS IGI has Mary as Mary 'Moars'. It also shows that two Mary 'Mores' were baptised at Old Basing in the 1750s, one on 21 September 1755 (parents George and Elizabeth Mores) and one on 21 April 1756 (parents also George and Elizabeth Mores). We do know that Letitia had at least seven siblings all of whom were born (and most buried) at Mapledurwell: William (1777-1848), Mary (1782-86), George (1784-88), Robert (1786-), Jean (1789-), Thomas (1798-1875) and Ann Prince.
The 1839 'Tithe Award for the Parish of Mapledurwell' shows Letitia's older brother, William Prince, as the occupier of an orchard over two rods in size. The orchard was owned by a Daniel May. The same document showed that William's son, John Prince, occupied a house and garden also owned by Daniel May. William's grandson and namesake married Jane Spencer from Sherborne St John in Hampshire in 1861. The couple had ten children, including twin boys Herbert Joseph and Francis William Prince (who, with his wife Louisa Morgan from Sandford in Berkshire, was running Prince's Farm at Mapledurwell in 1901). Another of Letitia's brothers, Robert Prince, married Mary Frewin at Mapledurwell in 1811. He and Mary lived at nearby Nately Scures after their marriage and had at least three children there: George, William and Jane Prince.
The Surrey Church of England Marriages and Banns, 1754-1927 contained on Ancestry shows that William Kersley and Letitia Prince were married after banns at St Peter's Anglican Church in Chertsey in Surrey on 9 November 1818. Their wedding certificate tells us William was a bachelor and Letitia a spinster and the wedding was witnessed by a Thomas Butt (or Batt) and Elizabeth Prince. After their marriage, the couple lived at Mapledurwell where they had at least twelve children - Mary Ann (baptised in 1819), George (1820), Emma (1822), Henry (1823), William (1824), Thomas (1826), Charles (1828), James (1830), John (1831), Louisa (1833), Robert (1834) and Joseph Kersley (1836) - before Letitia's premature death and subsequent burial there in November 1836. Over this time William was recorded in the baptism registers as working as a servant, labourer and shopkeeper. The parish registers also show that three of Letitia and William's children - Henry, James and Louisa Kersley - predeceased their mother and are also buried at Mapledurwell.
The picture on the right was among the collection of photos held by our Thomas Kersley's descendants and may be of Thomas' father William Kersley although this has not been confirmed.
Ancestry's immigration records show that five years after Letitia's death, William and eight of his children sailed from Liverpool to the United States on the ship ONTARIO. They arrived at New York on 22 June 1841 and were said to be bound for the County of Delaware. William Kearsley, as his name was spelt, was 48 years old and described as a labourer. He was accompanied by Mary Ann (aged 22), George (a 21 year-old wheelwright), Emma (20), William (17), Thomas (14), Charles (13), Robert (7) and Joseph 'Kearsley' (5). William's American adventure did not to last long however. In 1850 he and his daughter Emma were back in London attending the marriage of William's eldest daughter, Mary Anne Kersley, to William Bonney (see below). The census for the following year has William, then aged 57 and working as a baker, living with Mary Anne and William Bonney at their residence at Monk Sherborne in Hampshire. The LDS database shows that a William Kersley was buried at Monk Sherborne in Hampshire on 19 February 1859. Although no birthdate was given it seems reasonable to assume this was probably our William.
What of his and Letitia's children? It seems that John Kersley did not travel to America with his father and siblings but remained in England. He may have married Mary Ann Rachel Gibbons at St Mary's parish church at Lambeth in London in 1853 although we won't know for certain this is our John until we view the marriage certificate. The 1861 and 1871 censuses show John, who was born at Basingstoke in 1828 and worked as a baker, and Mary Ann living at Clapham in London with their five children all born locally: Mary Ann (1854), John E. (1856), Edward E. (1856), William (1858) and Charlotte (1859). We know that Thomas Kersley and his younger brother Robert eventually made their way to Australia although we remain uncertain whether they returned to England first or travelled there directly from the United States. Click here to read what we do know of their life, times and Antipodean descendants. To date we have been unable to find either Charles or Joseph Kersley after they left for America, suggesting they may have stayed or died there. The search continues. The remainder of William and Letitia's children did return to, and lived the rest of their lives in, England as follows:
Mary Anne Kersley (1819-1905) & William Bonney (1827-1914)
William and Letitia's eldest daughter, Mary Anne Kersley (1819-1905) married William Bonney (1827-1914), the son of William Bonney snr, a wheelwright, and Mary Follett, at the Parish of St George in London on 25 August 1850. As noted above, the wedding was witnessed by Mary Anne's father, William Kersley, and her younger sister Emma. After their marriage Mary Anne and William lived at Monk Sherborne in Hampshire where William worked as a baker and grocer and ran his own shop in the village. The 1881 census also indicates he and Mary Anne either owned or leased a 54-acre farm in Berkshire which employed three workers (we think the running of the farm was eventually taken over by William's youngest son Albert - see below).
Mary Anne Bonney nee Kersley died at Monk Sherborne in 1905. William died there in 1914. The National Probate Calendar for England and Wales shows that probate from his will went to his only two daughters: Mary Jane Bonney, spinster, and Mary Ann White (wife of Edwin Gilbert White). As described below, William and Mary Anne also had three boys one of whom, William Bernard (1851-51), died as an infant.
1) Mary Anne and William Bonney's eldest daughter, Mary Jane Bonney (1858-1943), never married and lived all her life at Monk Sherborne, initially with her parents - the 1911 census has her as the housekeeper for her widowed father - and later at Clifton House where she was registered in the 1939 England and Wales Register along with her widowed sister, Mary Anne White where both were said to be of 'independent means'. Earlier censuses indicate Mary Jane also served as Monk Sherborne's post mistress. She died at Clifton House on 25 March 1943, probate from her will being granted to her sister.
2) Mary Ann Bonney (1861-1951) lived with her parents at Monk Sherborne until her marriage to Edwin Gilbert White (1867-1917) in the Kingston registration district of Middlesex in 1908. The 1911 census shows Mary and Edwin, then a 44 year-old shop assistant for a gentleman's outfitter, living at 82 Park Road in the latter's birthplace of Wimbledon in Surrey. Edwin died at Esher in Surrey on 1 September 1917. As noted above, Mary Ann then went to live with her sister at Monk Sherborne. The UK National Probate Calendar shows she died there on 10 February 1951. Probate from her will was granted to Lloyds Bank and her nephew, Charles William Bonney, a grocer and provision merchant - see below. We don't think Mary Ann and Edwin had any children.
3) Ancestry's London Marriages database shows the two sisters' older brother, William Edgar Bonney (1854-1932), married Mary Jane Plant (1848-1912) at All Saints Church in Marylebone in London on 2 January 1878. Their wedding certificate shows that William, who was working as a grocer, and Mary Jane, the daughter of William Plant a deceased farmer, were both living at the District Rectory of All Souls in Langham Place Marylebone. The wedding was witnessed by Walter A. Plant and Sarah Jane Carter. We believe William and Mary Jane left England for the United States in around 1880. They were back in England for a brief period around the time of the 1911 census which shows William, then a 58 year-old married baker, boarding at Victoria House on Trafalgar Road in Basingstoke and Mary Jane, 63, married and born at Grazely in Berkshire, living at Monk Sherborne Post Office and bakery. Their respective census returns indicate William and Mary Jane had been married 33 years and had two children, one of whom was no longer living. The LDS database tells us that a William Edgar Bonney (aged 57) sailed from Liverpool to New York on the LAURENTIC on 16 April 1911. He was then said to be living at Basingstoke in Hampshire. The 1930 US census shows a William E. Bonney, a 76 year-old widower who had been born in England and emigrated to the US in 1880, was living at Tacoma in Pierce County in Washington. The same database shows William died at Tacoma on 18 December 1932, his wife Mary Jane had died and was buried there on 1 March 1912, and their only son, Ernest William Bonney, who was born in around 1883, died there on 20 April 1940. The New York Passengers Arrival lists show a 25 year-old Ernest W. Bonney, who was US-born, single and a printer by trade, sailed from Liverpool to Ellis Island in New York arriving there on 25 July 1908. The 1910 US census has William and his wife, Pennsylvania-born Rita S. Bonney (1885-1963), living at Tacoma where, as we have seen, Ernest died in 1940. His death certificate informs us he was a printer by trade and was born at Cherryville in Kansas, the son of William E. Bonney and Mary Jane Plant both of whom came from England. The 'Find a Grave' website shows that Ernest William Bonney aged 57 is buried in the Longbranch cemetery at Longbranch in Pierce County Washington USA. The website further indicates that Ernest and Rita had at least one son, Gary Bonney.
4) The UK census returns show William and Mary Anne's youngest son, Albert Bonney (1856-1945), was living at New House Farm in Stratfield Turgiss (outside Basingstoke) in 1891. Albert was said to be a farmer. Also living there were his sister Mary Jane, 32 and single, and an eighteen year-old domestic servant, Edith Carter. Seven years later Albert married Alice Mary Gilroy (1868-1943) at Kensington in London. Born at Maidenhead in Berkshire, Alice was the daughter of James Daniel Gilroy (1840-99) and Harriet Boyce (1841-1941) both of whom were china and glass dealers. At the time of the 1901 census Albert and Alice and their two small children were on a farm at White Walton in Berkshire. The fact they had two servants suggests they were reasonably well off. The London births database indicates they had at least four children at White Walton: Albert Lancelot (baptised in 1898), Charles William (1899), Mary Irene (1901) and Dorothy Mary Bonney (1903). This is confirmed by the 1911 census which shows the family living at 'Ramsdell' in Basingstoke. The 1939 England and Wales Register has Albert, a retired farmer, and Alice M. Bonney living on Fox Lane on the outskirts of Basingstoke. According to the UK National Probate Calendar Albert Bonney of Fir Tree Farm at Monk Sherborne died on 11 April 1945. Probate from his will was paid to his sons Albert Lancelot, farmer, and Charles William Bonney, grocer. Although still to be confirmed, we think Alice Mary pre-deceased her husband by two years. As we have seen, they had four children:
4.1) Albert Lancelot Bonney (1898-1983) who married Hilda Cane (1897-1990), the daughter of Arthur James Marshall Cane and Alice Emma Ayliffe, in the Basingstoke registration district of Hampshire in 1925. The 1939 England and Wales Register shows Albert, a farmer, and Hilda living at Coombe House Farm in Baughurst near Basingstoke. Living with them was their daughter Joan. The UK National Probate Calendar tells us Albert Lancelot Bonney died on 24 October 1983 and Hilda on 13 September 1990. We believe they had two children - Joan (1926-1993) and Robert L. (Bob) Bonney (1929-2015) - neither of whom married and both, like their parents, died at Baughurst.
From the 'Cane Family Tree' on Ancestry, these photos are of (from L/R): Hilda Cane, her husband Albert Lancelot Bonney and their daughter Joan Bonney.
4.2) Charles William Bonney (1899-1961) married Olivia May Wright (1903-88) in the Hartley Wintney RD of Hampshire in 1927. In her 'Sayer Family Tree' on Ancestry, one of their descendants, Helen Doel, tells us Olivia was born at Langrish in Hampshire, the daughter of William James Wright and Kate Yeomans, and died at Bournemouth in Hampshire. The 1939 England and Wales Register shows Charles William Bonney, a baker, grocer and shopkeeper, living at 'The Stores' on Eversley Street Hartley Wintney along with his wife Olivia, daughter Mary, a person whose 'record is officially closed', and a widow, Kate Wright (probably Olivia's mother). Helen Doel adds that Charles and Olivia's daughter, Mary Olivia Bonney (1928-99), married John Michael Sayer (1927-98) at Aldershot in 1952 and had one child, a son Victor William Sayer, who was born at Wokingham in Berkshire on 20 December 1954. Victor married Denise Sandra Smith in Hampshire in 1978.
$.3) Mary Irene Bonney (1901-86) married Frederick Thomas Stanley (1894-1959) at the Registry Office at Kingsclere in Hampshire on 10 January 1928. Born at Monk Sherborne, Frederick was the son of William Stanley (1858-1933) and Fanny Prouten (1862-1951). The 1939 England and Wales Register shows Frederick, a dairy farmer, and Mary living at Fir Tree Farm in the Charter Alley/Ramsdell rural district of Hampshire with their daughter Ruth Stanley (later Elliott). The UK National Probate Calendar tells us Frederick Thomas Stanley of Fir Tree Farm died on 4 June 1959. Administration of his will was granted at Winchester to his widow, Mary Irene Stanley. According to the 'Sims/Snook Family Tree' on Ancestry, Mary re-married in 1963, to a Walter Dunning, and died at Shaftesury in Dorset in 1986. It adds that Mary and Frederick had two daughters: Ruth (born in 1928) and Grace Stanley (1931). Ruth Stanley married David Guy Elliott at Pamber in Hampshire on 23 October 1948.
4.4) Dorothy Mary Bonney (1902-84) was living with her parents and siblings at Basingstoke at the time of the 1911 census. Natalie Oborne's 'Oborne Family Tree' on Ancestry tells us she married William Oborne (1902-82) at Kingsclere in Hampshire in December 1925. Born at Bishopstoke in Hampshire, William was the son of Harry Robert Oborne (1872-1958) and Annie Elizabeth Curtis (1872-1942) who were married there in 1900. The 1939 England and Wales Register shows a Dorothy M. Oborne living at Downs Bungalow in the Wantage RD of Berkshire with her husband William H. Oborne, a head herdsman, Gordon H. Oborne a school pupil who was born in 1926, and two others whose records were officially closed. The Surrey electoral rolls show William H., Dorothy M., and a William N. Oborne all living at Etherley Farm at Ockley/Dorking in Surrey in 1957 (the same year William jnr married Patricia S. Brelsford (1928-2006) in the Romford RD of Essex). Natalie Oborne tells us that Patricia was born at Romford and died at Southampton in Hampshire. Her parents were Cardiff-born Percival Hubert Shirley Brelsford (1903-45) and Doris Clapp (1896-1991). Patricia and William had three children. The England and Wales National Probate Index shows that Dorothy Mary Oborne, then of East Stour Gillingham in Dorset, died on 27 February 1986.
Emma Kersley (1822-1908) & James Hussey (1815-79)
As we have seen, Mary Anne's sister, Emma Kersley was at her sister's wedding in London in 1950. At the time of the 1851 census she was still single and living with Mary Anne at Monk Sherborne in Hampshire. Two years later, according to information sent to us by Nigel Gerdes, she married James Hussey at the All Saints Parish Church in the County of Southampton. Their wedding certificate indicates that James was a widower, the son of John Hussey, a labourer. He and Emma, said to be the daughter of the baker William 'Kearsley', were both living at 'Back of the Wall' in Southampton at the time of the wedding. They were married after banns by a W. A. Crawford, and along with their witnesses, James Hunt and Jane Watts, signed the marriage certificate. Nigel continues that James' parents were John Hussey and Elizabeth Wood who were married at Monk Sherborne in 1810. His siblings were Elizabeth (1812), William (1814), John (1818), Mary (1820), Henry (1823) and Priscilla Hussey (1832). James had been previously married to Mary Ann Spencer and had at least six children with her.
After their marriage James and Emma moved to Kingsclere in Hampshire where they established a bakery. The UK censuses indicate they lived the remainder of their lives at Kingsclere and had three children of their own there: Albert, Henry Thomas and Emma Letitia Hussey. James died at Kingsclere in 1879. The 1881 census shows the widowed Emma living at Woodlands in Kingsclere with her two sons, Albert and Henry Thomas, and working as a baker and grocer. At the time of the 1891 and 1901 censuses she was at Fair Oak in Kingsclere and working as an assistant grocer. The Catherine House index indicates she died at Kingsclere in 1908 when she was 86 years old.
Ancestry's UK and Ireland Outward Passenger lists show that shortly after their marriage at Kingsclere in 1921, Walter Alan (then a 23 year-old farmer) and Stella Sabina Clift (25), both of La Maisonette Samares in Jersey, sailed from London on the SS BERRIMA bound for Melbourne in Australia. The Australian electoral rolls show they ended up at Goolgowi in the NSW Riverina district where, according to a report in The Riverina Grazier on 4 July 1933, Walter was farming an 820-acre property in the parish of Waralda. Married and without children, he had 'been farming on his own account for the past ten years', had a complete set of plant, 70 tons of hay, 460 acres of wheat, and 40 acres of oats under crop. He was hoping to obtain still more land to add some grazing capacity to his holdings. This evident success notwithstanding, in 1937, as war clouds gathered once more over Europe, Walter and Stella sold their Goolgowi property and moved on. Stella sailed back to England where, as described earlier, she joined her sister and elderly parents at Nora's residence near Wokingham. Walter remained in Sydney where, in 1939, he joined the Australian Army and worked for a time as a Staff Sergeant at Victoria Barracks in Paddington before, in January 1940, transferring to the Second AIF (his attestation photo is shown on the right). Allocated to the 2/15th Field Artillery Regiment he embarked from Sydney for Malaya in July 1941. Six months later he was posted as missing and then as a prisoner of War in Thailand. Walter returned to Australia at War's end and was discharged from the Army in January 1946 (in August the same year he was awarded an MID for his war service in Malaya). Sometime after this Walter returned to England where he rejoined Stella in Berkshire. On 26 June 1957 he wrote to the Australian Army Records Office in Melbourne from 'Sherwood' in Wokingham requesting they send him the 1939-45 War Medal. This was duly despatched - together with his MID - along with the Pacific Star. Stella and Walter spent the remainder of their lives in England and were living at 24 Courts Road at Early in Reading when they both passed away in 1971, Stella on 2 April and Walter on 20 December.
