The Vicar of Slawston and Cranoe
The Reverend Charles Hanmer Strudwick was a larger than life character with a much travelled past. This prominent member of the community was born in Stroud, Gloucestershire in 1866 to John Cottrell Strudwick and Catherine Hester Knight. He was ordained at Southwell Minster, Nottinghamshire in 1893. He Became a priest in 1895 and later a curate at Blyth, Nottinghamshire and at Ilkeston, Derbyshire. His calling then took him to France Lynch in Gloucestershire followed by terms of office in three parishes:
1901 – 1912 Vicar of Thorpe Malsor, Northamptonshire
1913 – 1926 Vicar of Whetstone, Leicestershire
1926 – 1948 Vicar of Slawston and Cranoe, Leicestershire. He took over from the Reverend Reginald Metcalfe who is buried in Glooston churchyard. Slawston and Cranoe was Reverend Strudwick’s longest tenure and he served the community successfully until his well earned retirement. He married twice, firstly to Sarah Annie Raynor in 1893, who was born in Muggington in Derbyshire in 1870 and they had six children:
Charles’ children
Kathleen Mary born 1894 Ilkeston
Marjorie Annie born 1898 Stroud
Raynor Charles born 1900 Stroud
Noelle Esme born 1902 Cheltenham
married 1927 at Slawston
died 1941 Slawston
John Cottrell born 1906 Thorpe Malsor
died 1940 in the Middle East flying for the RAF
Yvonne Cecilia born 1908 Thorpe Malsor
married 1932 at Slawston
Sarah passed away in Slawston on 8 December 1941 and shortly afterwards the Reverend Strudwick remarried. His second wife was the family’s housekeeper, Nora Kathleen Josephine French. Sadly, none of the Reverend’s children attended the wedding in 1942. Nora, who was born in Wandsworth, London in 1904 became the Strudwick’s housekeeper in 1917 at the age of 13.
His first wife Sarah was laid to rest in Slawston churchyard in the same grave as her daughter Noelle Esme Sparrow, who had predeceased her earlier in the same year on 25 February 1941. Noelle had married a Ben Warren Sparrow, a stockbroker from Leicester, in 1927 in Slawston. Their son David John Noel Sparrow (1932 – 2014) was also interred in Slawston churchyard but in a separate plot to his mother and grandmother. Both graves have headstones bearing their names. David had moved with his wife June to Slawston on his retirement.
Charles’ Retirement
Initially the Reverend Strudwick left Slawston vicarage and moved to Bournemouth on retirement in 1948. Later he went to live with his youngest daughter YvonneYvonne, who was married in Slawston in 1932 to the Reverend Leonard Coulshaw CB, MC, FKC (1896 – 1988) who was appointed Chaplain of the Fleet and Archdeacon of the Royal Navy from 1948 to 1952.
He was an Honorary Chaplain to both King George VI and Queen Elizabeth II. He fought on the Somme during the First World War and was awarded the Military Cross in 1917. Reverend Coulshaw was ordained in 1923 and commissioned as a Chaplain in the Royal Navy. His last appointment was as Vicar of West End, Southampton. It was here that the Reverend Charles Hanmer Strudwick passed away in 1954 at the age of 88, having had a full and eventful life. His widow Nora died 38 years later in 1992 in Weston-Super-Mare. She was also 88 years of age.
Incidentally, after Charles and Nora’s wedding was reported in the newspaper back in 1942, a long lost brother of the bride got in touch. He hadn’t seen Nora since childhood when she left home at the age of 13 to work for the Strudwick family. How sad that they had lost contact with each other for so many years. But at least it was good to know that they had finally found each other and could be reunited once again.
Glyn Hatfield
Editorial
