Reginald George Baker was the youngest child of James and Frances Baker. His older brother James, emigrated to Canada in 1914, joined the Canadian Expeditionary Force and was killed during the Third Battle of Ypres (Passchendaele). See our War Dead section.
We are very grateful to Reginald’s grandson, Steve Hale, for writing the fascinating account of his grandfather’s life that follows and for providing us with many photographs.
My granddad was born on 14 August 1898 to James Baker, aged 35, and Frances Julia Baker (nee Land), aged 29. He was the youngest of four children, and was, like his siblings, born in Carleton Rode, Norfolk.
Reg was a delicate child, as his school records detail, even to the extent of his mother requesting he be held back a year.
The following entries are recorded in the School Log books:
May 5th 1903 admitted Reginald Baker to Infant class.
Dec 9th 1903 Reginald Baker reported by note to be ill.
Mar 2nd 1905 Mrs Baker sent a note requesting that Reginald Baker (Infant) should not be promoted to Standard I due to delicate health.
June 20th 1905 Note received stating that Reggie Baker is ill.
Mar 10th 1910 medical certificate received for Reggie Baker.
He was also a regular truant, which had dire consequences. In 1908, Reg and another lad skipped school, and went to the fair. There, they partook of some shellfish, which led to severe illness. His father, James was also affected. Reg, despite being a “weakly” child, survived. His father was not so fortunate and died, aged only 45. Reg was 10, and we can only guess how this accident was viewed within the family, and by him.
Without their father, and his regular wage, life would have been hard for the family. His older sister, Gertrude, was already in service and his mother was taking in sewing and laundry to make ends meet and by 1914 Reg was already working on the land. In the middle of that year, as part of the farming initiative, his two brothers, James and Oliver, set off for a new life in Canada. However, war broke out in Europe as they arrived in Winnipeg. Oliver later crossed into USA, but James joined the Canadian Expeditionary Force, (Manitoba Regiment).
Reginald had a sweetheart, Barbara Cooper, some four years his junior. She lived in his home village and was the daughter of David and Lily Cooper (although Lily died in 1910). However, the Great War was in full flow, and according to his own account, Reginald left home, lied about his age and joined up. Early in 1918, Barbara gave birth to their daughter, Dorothy.
(We know from later army service records that Reg enlisted in the Queen’s Royal Regiment (West Surrey) Service No. 23209.)
On 26th October 1917, his brother James was killed at Passchendaele, and is commemorated on the Menin Gate.
(Barbara’s oldest sister, Margaret Cooper, also married a local boy who fought and survived, Harry Levi Smith.)
At the end of the war, Reg returned to Carleton Rode but arguments ensued. Reg’s mother, the widowed Frances, and Barbara’s father, David, also a widower, had become close and married in late 1918. They were unhappy that Dorothy had been born out of wedlock and would not allow Reg and Barbara to marry until she turned 18. It was not a happy time for the young couple, but they married in Carleton Rode Church in 1920 and had a son, Geoffrey George, born in November of that year. However, things within the wider family did not improve, so Reginald accepted the suggestion of a friend from his army days, to seek work in the quarries of Yorkshire. Reg and his young family set off for Settle in North Yorkshire with the prospect of work at Horton Quarry.
In Carleton Rode, David and Frances Cooper had a happy marriage which lasted until David died in 1944. Frances would live on until 1958. For many years they ran a pub in Old Buckenham (The Prince of Wales on Fen Street – now a private house) and during the Second World War took in evacuees. Many of these returned to settle in Norfolk after the war.
Reginald and Barbara, with their two young children – indeed Geoffrey would have been a tiny baby – moved into 13 Proctors Row, Settle, but it must have been a difficult beginning in Yorkshire as sadly Dorothy died almost as soon as they arrived, aged just 3. She is buried in an unmarked grave in Settle cemetery.
Times continued to be extremely difficult as on the 31st May 1923, Reg re-enlisted in Leeds with his regiment, Queen’s Royal Regiment (West Surrey), for a 4-year term (he was discharged in May 1927). This meant a regular wage, especially as their next child, Reginald James (our first Yorkshireman and always known as Jim) arrived in November 1923, followed by Ronald David in December 1925 (perhaps his middle name suggests a healing between Reginald and his mother?)
Barbara was highly superstitious, and when number 4 Proctors Row became available the family moved down the road to it. Reginald was to live there for the next 50 years! The rent? 7’6d.
Barbara always wanted another daughter, and sure enough, in January 1930, Barbara Irene (my Mum, known as Rene up north) was born. By this time Reginald had left the quarry and started working as a gardener “at the big house”. He loved being out in the open and had a true affinity with nature. The limited photos that we have of this period seem to show a happy childhood for all of Reg and Barbara’s children.
Then tragically, in January 1941, Barbara Ellen Baker died. She was just 41, and the young sweethearts had been married for over 20 years. Reg was distraught; he was inconsolable and, in his grief, destroyed all images of Barbara.
However, a few years later Reginald did re-marry, in 1945, to Edith Constantine. The wedding was also attended by Oliver Perry Baker, the older brother who had spent many years in Canada and the USA but had not returned to fight in the First World War. He returned to the UK in 1933 giving his occupation as ‘farmer’ and his intended residence as Old Buckenham in Norfolk. It is not known what happened next until his marriage to Doris Alice Constance Proctor is registered at the beginning of 1939. The couple are found on the 1939 Register in September of that year living in Bevere Green, Droitwich, where Oliver is working as a cowman. A son was born to the couple, James Perry Baker, in 1943. Geoffrey (Reg’s oldest son) remembers meeting him his Uncle Oliver as a teenager but had no other knowledge of him except that he attended his father’s second wedding.
Reginald’s second marriage was a happy one and the couple continued to live in Proctors Row.
Edith died in 1961. Reginald was not one to remain on his own, and just one year later, he married for a third time, to Ellen Hobman, when he was 64 years of age. Sadly she passed away just 4 years later.
Loneliness was not for Reg, and a year later he married Annie Lyon in 1967. She refused to live in a house that did not have an inside toilet or bathroom, and so they moved to Burnley. It was not the best of marriages, unfortunately, but Reginald remained there until his death, aged 79, in 1978.
Sadly, much of this has been dates for hatches, matches and dispatches (as my Mum always called Births, Marriages and Deaths). I confess, I wish I had listened more intently when younger, especially as we have now lost all my uncles and aunts, so checking background information becomes more and more difficult.
Reginald was a country lad at heart. A very brief anecdote, from my own youth.
Around 1974, my Grandad came to visit. We took our dog for a walk, which took maybe 20 minutes. While we were walking, Grandad pulled out his penknife, and cut a small twig off a tree. By the time we were turning home, being halfway through our walk, he had made me a sliding whistle, and was gaily playing a tune on it.