William NEALE (1905–1927)
St Mary Magdalen section: Row 42, Grave N59
In Sweet Remembrance of
A DEAR SON AND BROTHER
WILLIAM (BILLY) NEALE
DIED AUGUST 4TH 1927. AGE 22 YEARS.
William Neale (Billy) was born at Frog's Hole, Wood End, Botley on 5 February 1905 and baptised at Cumnor Church on 27 June, the illegitimate son of the widow Mrs Emma Neale.
At the time of the 1901 census his mother Emma Neale (28) was living at Frog's Hole with William G. Neale (36), an agricultural labourer who was probably her common-law husband, and her six children, all listed with the surname Neale: Florence and Elizabeth (both 14), Percy (12), Albert (9), Edgar (7) and Annie (18 months).
At the time of the 1911 census his widowed mother called herself Emma Morris and was still living at Frog's Hole and working as a charwoman. She was not sure where she was born, but it was somewhere in Warwickshire. She listed all four of her children who were still at home with the surname Morris: Anne (11), Nellie (8), William himself (6), and Reginald (3). She marked all of them as being illegitimate.
The 1921 census shows William Neale (16), a machinist at the Clarendon Press, living at 22 Cardigan Street in Jericho with his mother Emma Neale (45), who was still a widow, and his two older sisters/half-sisters Annie Neale (21), who was a waitress and Nellie Neale (18), who was the domestic help of Mrs McIntyre of 6 Winchester Road. William also had a younger brother/half-brother Reginald Neale (13) whose father was noted as dead and who was still at school.
William died at that address in 1927:
† William Neale died at 22 Cardigan Street at the age of 22 on 4 August 1927 and was buried in St Sepulchre’s Cemetery on 8 August (burial recorded in the parish register of St Mary Magdalen Church).
It is unclear why his burial took place in the St Mary Magdalen section of the cemetery, as Cardigan Street was in St Paul’s parish; but other burials of people who lived in that street are recorded in the St Mary Magdalen parish register around this time.
Mrs Neale was still listed as living at 22 Cardigan Street in 1928.
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