Rectory Lane Cemetery, Berkhamsted

Unmarked Grave: James Beddall (1854-1940)

James was born in Aldbury, 13th February 1854, the son of Daniel, an agricultural labourer, and Lydia (née England), a straw plaiter.

By the time James was seven the family were living in Bell Lane, Northchurch. Ten years later their address was the Wilderness, Berkhamsted. Daniel, James and his thirteen year old brother Jesse were all employed as labourers. Lydia and daughters Martha and Fanny were straw plaiters and the family also included William, Susan and baby John. Three more daughters were to be born.

James married Laura Wells in Berkhamsted in 1876. Their first son, Jesse, was born in 1877 and eventually they were to have thirteen children, of whom eight survived their early childhood. (They are all listed in the record for Laura, who was also buried in this cemetery)

At the time of the 1881 census the family resided in “Back Alley”, Castle Street, but in 1891 the family was living in a cottage in Wharf Lane, Rickmansworth. James, however, was not at home on census night. Two of their children Frederick (b.1891) and William John (b.1894) were born in Long Melford, Suffolk, but by 1896 James and Laura had moved back to Berkhamsted and in 1901 they were living at 2, Water Lane. James was employed as a gas fitter.

In 1911 the family had moved again to 18/19, Red Lion Yard and James’s occupation was given as “Hot and cold water pipe fitter”.

Laura passed away 20th July 1935 aged 77 and in the 1939 Register James is recorded as a retired gas fitter living at 30, Highfield Road with his son Frederick, a road labourer.

James survived his wife until the Spring of 1940 when he died aged 86.

A number of other members of the extended Beddall family are buried in this cemetery:

James’s sister Fanny (1862-1937) and her husband Charles Tomlin are buried in plot 985. His grandson Dennis Peter Beddall (1927-1934), the son of Frederick, is buried in plot 1030 and