William Glyndwr Samuel (1903 - 1946)

Born 2 Jan 1903 in Pontlottyn, Glamorganshire, Wales.

Ancestors

Husband of Helen Theodora Lakin (Stanton) Lane — married 2 Aug 1930 (to 15 Feb 1946) in Wandsworth registration district, London, England.

Died 15 Feb 1946 at age 43 in Alton, Hampshire, England.

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Biography

William Glyndwr Samuel was born on 2 January 1903,^[1] at Pontlottyn, in the parish of Gelligaer, Glamorganshire, Wales, ^[2], the eldest of five children born to William James Samuel and Mary (Minnie) Powell.

Glyn, as he was generally known, was bilingual in Welsh and English. He spent his childhood in Pontlottyn, then attended Aberystwyth University before moving to London, where he was employed as a pharmacist at Harrods department store in Knightsbridge. It was at Harrods that he met his future wife Helen Theodora (Dot) Lakin Stanton, and they were married at a Register Office in Wandsworth on 2 Aug 1930.^{[3] [4]}

Glyn and Dot moved from London and opened a shop in Durrington, a village in Wiltshire, near Amesbury, but in 1932 they moved again, to the ancient market town of Alton, in Hampshire. Here they opened a pharmacy, Glyn Samuel Chemist, and raised a family of five children: a girl in 1932, a second girl, Barbara in 1933, a boy in 1936, another boy in 1938, and a third girl in 1942.

For the first six years at Alton the shop and residence were at number 9 Normandy Street, but in 1939 (shortly before the Second World War) the lease expired and the family (with two girls and two boys at this time) moved across the road to number 6A.^[5] Glyn did not serve in the armed forces during the war because he suffered from tuberculosis (TB), but he served as an Air Raid Precautions (ARP) Warden, and Dot also served in the ARP.^[6]

Before the war, Dot sometimes took the two oldest children by train to London to visit her mother, Grandma Helen, leaving the younger children in the care of their Nanny, and on one occasion Glyn drove Dot and their eldest girl in the sidecar of his motor cycle, to visit Grandma Helen.^[7] In 1939 Grandma Helen moved to Alton, but there was no room for her above the chemist shop, so she rented rooms above a greengrocer’s shop at 18 Normandy Street.^[8]

In 1942, Dot gave birth to her fifth child, and soon afterwards Glyn had a win on the football pools, enabling him to purchase a large house further along Normandy Street, number 100, with room for all the family, including Grandma Helen. Glyn was well regarded in Alton. He was a member of the congregation of St Lawrence Anglican Church; he had a fine tenor voice and sang in local productions of Gilbert and Sullivan operettas, including the part of Louis in The Gondoliers; and was elected Master of the local Masonic Lodge.^[9]

Glyn died at home during the night of 15 February 1946, at the age of 43, from tuberculosis, from which he had suffered intermittently over much of his adult life. Probate was granted in London on 24 July 1946 to his widow, with effects of £3458.12s.3d, ^[10] which suggests that the house at 100 Normandy Street was heavily mortgaged. The family was obliged to move back over the shop at 6A Normandy Street, and Dot kept the shop going by employing a pharmacist. Her two sons, who had previously been educated by a private tutor, were accepted as boarders at the Royal Masonic School at Bushey, in Hertfordshire; her elder daughters continued their education as day pupils locally.

Research Notes

Details of when and where Glyn Samuel was initiated into Freemasonry, and of his subsequent Masonic career, are still being researched. It is certain that he served as Master of a lodge (presumably The Shalden Lodge No.2012) while living at Alton, and that his sons were both admitted as boarders at the Royal Masonic School after his death. Possible locations for his initiation are Aberystwyth (West Wales), Glamorganshire (South Wales), London, Wiltshire, and Alton (Hampshire).

Sources

1. ↑ birth date from 1939 National Register, Urban District 104-1 (Alton, Hants)
2. ↑ census for England & Wales, 1911, for Glamorganshire
3. ↑ family oral history, as told to their children, and recalled in 2020
4. ↑ Marriage Registration: "England & Wales Marriage Index"
   FreeBMD Entry Information (accessed 23 July 2022)
   Samuel, William G.
   GRO Reference: 1930 Jul-Aug-Sep in Wandsworth Volume 1d Page 1631.
5. ↑ family oral history
6. ↑ 1939 National Register, Urban District 104-1 (Alton, Hants)
7. ↑ recollections of the two older girls in 2020
8. ↑ 1939 National Register, Urban District 104-1 (Alton, Hants)
9. ↑ family oral history
10. ↑ England & Wales National Probate Calendar (Index of Wills and Administrations) 1858-1966, for 1946, p.22 col.1