Wynhall, Charles Benjamin

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• Charles [Benjamin] Wynhall married, 1899, Hastings, Edith Kate Veness.

  In the 1911 census he is a cellarman for the Queens Hotel at 6 Hughenden Road, born in Hastings. This was a 4-roomed dwelling. His wife Edith Kate, age 34, was born in next door St Leonards. They had been married 14 years and had had 3 children, of whom 2 were still alive.

  The house was crowded. The others in the household were two daughters; brother in law Arthur Fuller, a lithographic printer; sister [in law] Rose Beatrice Fuller; their daughter; and a boarder.

  On the 28 October 1914 he attested at Hastings for the Territorials of the Royal Sussex Regiment. His number was 2797 and he was in the 1st Company of the 5th Battalion. He was 46, quite elderly for a new private. He had apparently served before in the Territorials. He was discharged only a few days later, on the 4 November 1914, as he was "medically unfit".

  This information is taken from the enlistment papers, which survive. On one of the latter pages is written against the printed words "Joined on Enlistment" "Gn. Bn. Bedfordshire Regt." and 24087, his regimental number, but no date of enlistment. On the next page are medical records: he spent 23 days in Landour Hospital [India] from the 3 April 1916 for diarrhoea followed by 8 days for bronchitis from the 24 October 1916 and 39 days for TB from the 1 November 1916. Then there was 62 days for TB at Delhi Hospital from 10 December 1916, having apparently been transferred from Landour.

  The next page says that he appeared before a medical board at Delhi on the 5 February 1917 and was found "unfit for further service", and he was discharged on the 18 March 1917.

  Despite his claim in the 1911 census that he was born in Hastings, a further page of the same military records says he was born in Pontypridd, Wales, and his full name was Charles Benjamin Wynhall. His declared age in 1914 was 38 despite an earlier page stating that he was 46 at the time.

  The 1881 census for 93 St George's Road, Hastings, gives the household of Nicolas J. Wynhall, Greenwich pensioner, born St Helier, Jersey, and his wife Elizabeth, from Berkshire. Their five children (all born Sussex) include Charles, age 12, born Bulverhythe, a neighbourhood in St Leonards and now part of Hastings. There are also two stepsons, age 16 and 14, implying that the Wynhall children were his by an earlier relationship. Nicholas J. Wynhall did marry an Elizabeth Stevenson, in 1880, in Hastings. Nicholas James Wynhall had married, 1862, Hastings, Ann Chatfield. He went on to marry a third time, in 1896, again in Hastings. The 1871 census shows him at Pevensey, Sussex, in the Coastguard, married to Ann, with four children, and born St Helier. He died in 1899 in Hastings.

  Charles' place of birth is yet more muddied by Royal Sussex Regiment Territorial enlistment records in 1888. Age 17, a labourer, he says he was born in Pevensey. He is almost certainly the same man, as he was 5 feet 9 inches in both 1888 and 1914. He served in the Boer War, 1900-02, and received a medal. The FreeBMD database shows that his birth was registered in Hastings in early 1869.

  What of Edith Kate, the widow ? The 1920 electoral register shows her as a voter at 6 Hughenden Road together with William Crouch, Alice Mary Crouch, and Frances Emily Oak. In the 1931 electoral register she is at 10 Hughenden Road (possibly the same dwelling, renumbered) with George Edwin Bumstead and Alice Bumstead. She died in 1938 at the Municipal Hospital, Hastings, age 61. The Hastings and St Leonards Observer for the 7 May 1938 records her death the previous Saturday, and says that she had been living with her daughter Mrs [Queen E., married to Frederick A.] Bishop at 64 Manor Road, Hastings. Three daughters and two sisters attended the funeral at Hastings Cemetery.

• Thanks Stephen, very interesting. He once lived at a house I lived in for many years! Kind Regards, Kieron