James Seadon was born in 1879 in Finningham, Suffolk. He was the son of Samuel, a farm bailiff born in Walsham Le Willows and his wife, Victoria Martin (nee Oliver, from Westhorpe); all these villages are in the mid-Suffolk area to the east of Bury St Edmunds. By 1891 the family had relocated to Carleton Rode and were farming in their own right at what is now known as Carleton Manor (previously this had also been referred to as Church Farm and later on Seadon’s Farm – to distinguish it from the Church Farm opposite – on Flaxlands Road).
James had five siblings; John (born in London in 1868), Kate (1871), Fanny (1874) Thomas (1876) and Sarah (1882). Fanny (who became a domestic servant working for the vicar of Winfarthing) had a son, Fred Lansdell, who at different times was living with relatives at the Farrier’s Arms on the Mile Road and later at the Adam and Eve on North Road.
Fred joins the regular army in 1908 and by 1911 was serving with the Norfolk Regiment 2nd Battalion in India. He survived the First World War and is recorded on the Roll of Honour board. We’ll be following up his story in our forthcoming survivors’ pages.
By 1901, James Seadon was a blacksmith, lodging in North Walsham and working at the town foundry. He married Harriet Nina Hurn in 1903 and they had a daughter, Doris, born 21st April 1906, who died aged 11 months. Another child, James George Seadon, was born in August 1913 and was baptised in Carleton Rode Church. (He was buried in our village in 1984.) According to the electoral records of 1914/1915, the family were living on the Bacton Road in North Walsham. However, we think they may have moved to nearby Knapton as army and probate records give this as James’s address.
James joined the Army Service Corps, Military Transport Reinforcements, and was posted to East Africa. At this time, his brother Thomas and sister Sarah were living at Seadon’s Farm (now Carleton Manor). Thomas, a widower, was reported in the Diss Express 1916 as having been prosecuted for moving pigs under the Swine Order.
James died of disease on the 23rd March 1917 and is buried in Dar-Es-Salaam Cemetery in Tanzania. He was the oldest soldier from Carleton Rode to die in the conflict.
Carleton Rode Parish Magazine May 1917:
Deaths – March 12 (East Africa) James Seadon aged 38
James Seadon, who always paid us a visit every year at Easter, made the ‘supreme sacrifice’ in East Africa bravely fighting for country and home.
James is also remembered on the Memorial Board in St Nicholas’s Church, North Walsham.
