Reader's Responses

Since my last article “Remembrance Never To Be Forgotten”, in the winter issue, I‘ve had two very interesting responses regarding Dead Man’s Pennies.

Over the Christmas period, I went to Babell Cemetery, in Cwmbwrla  to find some headstones and to see the problem that the Japanese knotweed was causing. Jo Mullett, who is working on eradicating the knotweed showed me around.
Jo told me about her father, John Alfred Mullett, having the Dead Man’s Penny belonging to his uncle. Second Lieutenant Benjamin Alfred Lewis, from Llandybie, Carmarthenshire served with the King’s Own Yorkshire Light Infantry. On 8th November 1918, whilst crossing the Sambre, Benjamin was killed, and is buried at Avesnes-sur-Helpe Communal Cemetery.
I was also contacted by Mike Murphy who had seen my daily post on my Facebook page, with regard to his great grandfather, Private John Dalton.  ‘Dalton’ wasn’t his name but Murphy. The story of John was told to Mike by his grandfather, Thomas. John Murphy had ‘adopted’ his grandmother’s maiden surname, Dalton, when he enlisted with the Somerset Light Infantry in 1904 aged 17.  John’s parents, John and Druscilla Murphy lived at 5 Skinner Street, with Ann Dalton, the grandmother. During the early 1900s, the family moved to Methyr Tydfil, for work.  John stayed behind with his grandmother. By 1907 John was out of the army, but in 1914 John re-enlisted at the outset of the First World War, again using the name of John Dalton.
John was waved off from Swansea Railway Station, around 21 August 1914, by his wife Druscilla and sons, Jack 9, Thomas 9 and James 18 months. By December 1914, John who had seen action at Mons, was wounded and brought back home to the UK.  He was sent to Lord Lucas’ Hospital, Wrest Park, Bed-fordshire, where he died from his wounds on 7 December 1914.  He was the first to be buried at St. John Churchyard, Silsoe. August 2014, to mark the centenary anniversary of the outbreak of the First World War, Wrest Park held an event to commemorate Wrest being used as a hospital. Sadly, no photograph has survived of John Dalton.


Copyright - The Bay Magazine, February 2019


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