The Alcock Family …. another story from Tony Goulding

This memorial to the famous aviator, Sir John William Alcock, is located in a very prominent position in Manchester’s Southern Cemetery.  

Being the pilot of the aeroplane which made the first non-stop flight across the Atlantic on the 14th –15th June, 1919 his story is well recorded, on Wikipedia and elsewhere, and will not feature further in this story. 

However, this site is also the grave of other members of the Alcock family with Sir John William’s father, mother, and one of his brothers, Edward Samson, interred in it. As it is my contention that we all have a story worth recording, not just the famous, it is these which form the basis of this piece.     

Sir John’s father, also John Alcock was born on the 21st February, 1870 to Thomas Alcock, a coachman, and his wife Betsy (née Louth) at 26, Maple Street, Hulme, Manchester. John Alcock Snr. Followed his father’s occupation of “coachman” and in the 1891 census he appears as such on Seymour Grove, Stretford, Lancashire. However, at this time he was still single and was residing at no. 64 not Basford House (which was no. 126). 

Basford House, Seymour Grove, Stretford 

In the December quarter of 1891 he married Mary Whitelegg with John William their first child being born on the 5th November, 1892. According to several sources the child was born in the coach house of Basford House(1)   Over the next decade and a half the family relocated several times and expanded, quite modestly for the time, with John William getting four siblings, Elsie, Edward Samson, Albert Gerard, and Dudley. Indicating the family’s different homes in this period, Elsie was born in Hulme, Manchester on the 25th September, 1895, both Edward Samson and Albert Gerard were born in St. Annes on the Sea (2) on 2nd October, 1901 and 23rd July, 1903 respectively.  Finally, Dudley was born on the 6th March, 1907 after a move to Heaton Moor, Stockport. The 1911 census shows they had moved again, this time to 6, Kingswood Road, Fallowfield. 

6, Kingswood Road, Fallowfield, Manchester

The frequent changes of addresses were probably due to John Snr’s. occupation as a coachman which would have required him to reside in the “coach house” attached to his employer’s property. The late Victorian and more especially the Edwardian eras saw a decline in the numbers of domestic servants, generally and the switch to “horseless carriages” would also have impacted on those working with horses as John Alcock did. 

At the baptism of his last child, Dudley, his occupation was recorded as “coach proprietor” which may explain the family gaining a degree of stability as they remained at Kingswood Road for the next 10 years. Following Sir John William’s death in a flying accident in Normandy, France on the 18th December, 1919 his father inherited a large portion of the £10,000 prize money awarded by The Daily Mail for the first crossing of the Atlantic. This aided John and Mary to move, with their two youngest children, to a larger house viz. 215, Burton Road, West Didsbury, Manchester. This continued being their home for the remainder of their lives. John dying on the 24th August, 1929 and Mary on the 7th November, 1941.

The census of 1921 records them at this address with John Snr. employed as a “horse keeper” (3) by E. Hulton & Co. newspaper proprietors (the publishers of The Manchester Evening Chronicle, Sporting Chronicle, Daily Sketch and others).

 

215, Burton Road, West Didsbury, Manchester

By this time Elsie had married James Frederick Moseley at The Holy Innocents Church, Fallowfield, Manchester during the September quarter of 1915. The couple had six children together. James Frederick died suddenly at Stoke-on-Trent station on the 24th July, 1948 and shares a grave with three of his siblings in Y Fynwent Newydd, Rhuddlan, Denbighshire, Wales. 

Elsie died on the 21st November, 1981 while living at 7, Meadow Bank, Timperley, Altrincham, Greater Manchester. She was interred in the family grave (G 966) in Southern Cemetery, Manchester.

A former pupil at Manchester Grammar School, Edward Samson was also absent from the Alcock’s 1921 census return. He had, by then, emulated his brother and joined the R.A.F. 

He joined the service on the 19th March, 1921 having already been flying with his brother. Prior to joining the air force, he had served briefly in The Royal Navy, (4) signing up on his 18th birthday for 12 years. However, after just over three months he was discharged. In the time between his spells in the country’s armed forces he was employed as a motor cycle tester by Douglas Norton Ltd. of Kingswood, Bristol. 

He joined the R.A.F. as an aircraftman/ motor cyclist but rose rapidly through the ranks to become a senior N.C.O. and both a pilot and flying instructor. The R.A.F. records also give details of his wedding at Easthampstead, Berkshire on the 7th June, 1924 to Hilda Willmin. Edward was placed on the reserve list in June, 1929 and became a civil pilot with Imperial Airways, then on the 18th March, 1933 he was granted a permanent discharge from the service.  

The Manchester Evening News of 15th September, 1942 carried a report that Captain Alcock, who was in command of a flying boat, “Castor”, had recently landed in Durban, South Africa having completed flights totaling 2,000,000 miles. Captain Alcock later became the chief flying instructor for the nationalised  B.O.A.C and by the end of his flying career had flown over 4,000,000 miles and for 25,000 hours. Included in these totals were journeys with Winston Churchill and King Alfonso of Spain and the evacuation of British troops from Crete, flying an unarmed aircraft. In retirement he had an indifferent career in business. Edward Samson was married three times. After his divorce from Hilda, his second wife was Esme Grace Oldham, the wedding taking place in Cairo, Egypt during the turmoil of the Second World War. This second marriage did not survive long as in June, 1949 he married Mrs. Ruth Mary Whitefoot an air stewardess he had met in Durban South Africa. Mrs. Whitehouse was the widow of First Officer George Kenneth Whitehouse (24) who was killed in a flying boat crash on the Isle of Wight on the !9th November, 1947. Edward Samson Alcock died in December, 1974 in Surrey and was buried in Southern Cemetery, Manchester on the 7th January, 1975.  In his later years, as a tribute to his late brother, Edward Samson added the name John to his official name.

Albert Gerard Alcock, married Elizabeth Dorothy Lancashire at the United Reformed Church, Water Street, Radcliffe during the September quarter of 1927.  An electoral roll of 1931 shows the couple residing at 34, Elms Road, Whitefield, Nr. Bury, Lancashire. They later moved to 7, Hardman Road, Whitefield, where they raised two sons, Winston Neville and John D. Albert Gerard was employed as a salesman for a wholesale cotton company. He died at 27, Hardman Road, Whitefield, Lancashire on the 16th September, 1971; leaving an estate of £9,238.

In contrast to two of his brothers, Dudley, the youngest child of John Snr. and Mary Alcock eschewed the air and instead pursued a career in the Merchant Navy in which he progressed to the rank of Radio Officer and included service during World War 2. In the September quarter of 1940, Dudley married Dulcia M. Forrester in Haverfordwest, Pembrokeshire, Wales. Miss Forrester was born in Kettering and in the 1939 Register is shown residing with her parents in that town and working as an assistant in a chemist’s shop. There exists a record of Dudley’s discharge from the ship Dorsetshire in Torquay, Devon on the 15th of March, 1943 and it was the Torbay area of that county in which the couple settled after the war. The Torbay Express and South Devon Echo dated 26th March, 1951 includes Dulcia’s name in a list of cast members for the Paignton Operatic, Dramatic, and Choral Society’s production of “Bless the Bride”

Dudley Alcock passed away in the Torbay area during July, 1992. 

Pictures: - Basford House, Seymour Grove by Peter McDermott, CC BY-SA 2.0,

 https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=85394728 

All others from the collection of Tony Goulding.

Notes: - 

1) In the 1891 census John Alcock Senior was living in the coach house attached to the residence of William Devonshire Ryde a silk manufacturer who in 1881 was described as a manufacturer of church tapestries with 200 employees. Basford house was the home of James William Jones, a chemical manufacturer and colliery proprietor until his death on the 9th February 1894 after which the house became the residence of William Gregory Thompson an aniline dye manufacturer. One of Mr. Thompson’s previous homes had been 7, St. Clement’s Road, Chorlton-cum-Hardy.

2) The Alcock family’s address in 1901 was 41, Nelson Street, St. Annes on the Sea, Fylde, Lancashire.

3) In John William’s probate record dated 27th February, 1920, his father’s occupation was inflated somewhat being recorded as “Veterinary Surgeon”. The estate was assessed at £9,275-9s-9d (= £319,533 today).

4) During the First World War, Edward Samson had joined the Naval Air Cadets first flew solo with them.