Since researching my family tree and creating my website, I have been very fortunate in that various people have contacted me with regard to my ancestors. Among these was a distant relative who saw that I was related to John Suddens. She has been researching the same branch of the family as me and came across the following obituary in the Coventry archives. She was kind enough to forward it to me and as it is of so much interest to our family, I decided to add it to my site. John was the Grandfather of Hannah Maria Suddens, my Great-Grandmother who married Arthur Pearman in 1878.

Found in "City of Coventry Vol 4 1882-3", compiled by Alfred Lowe. Coventry p 161.

Obituary:- December 28th 1882 The late Mr John Suddens

     Our obituary this week contains the name of one of the veterans of the watch-making industry, the oldest of our finishers. Mr Suddens was born in this city on the 26th. of December 1789, and died on the 28th inst., two days after attaining his 93rd year. He was apprenticed to the old firm of Howlett, Carr & Vale in 1803, & has continued to serve the same firm under it's different changes of proprietorship at the old factory, working at the board until a few years since, when a well-earned pension from his employers enabled him to discontinue labour, though his name has been retained on the list of workmen up to his death. During all this long period he has never lost a day from illness. He was much respected, not only by his employers, but by his fellow artisans; & on the occasion of the presentation of a testimonial by the workmen of the late Mr R K Rotherham, in commemoration of the fiftieth anniversary of his being in business, Mr Suddens, as the oldest in the employ of the firm, was appropriately selected to make the presentation. He was out of his time as an apprentice in 1811, but was not sworn until 1822, he has therefore been a Freeman of the City for the long term of 60 years, which might have been 11 years longer, but for this delay. He was one of the recipients of the seniority fund. Mr Suddens has left three sons, the oldest, a dyer, about 70 years of age: the others follow their father's occupation; all of them strongly sensible of the consideration & generosity shown towards their father by the heads of the firm for which he has worked for nearly 80 years. An intelligent mechanic & self-educated man of kindly disposition, he will be greatly missed by his friends & associates

      I have also learned from a third cousin of mine, Heather, about my Suddens branch of the family.  My Great Grandmother, Hannah Maria Pearman, nee Suddens, was the daughter of James Suddens and Hannah Freeman, who came from Kenilworth. Hannah Maria was the eighth child of twelve, the youngest being her sister Eliza, from whom Heather is descended. Eliza married Frederick Pepper and had five children before being widowed and re-marrying.  Her eldest son William was killed in the first World War on March 31st 1918.  He would have been my first cousin twice removed.  He has no known grave, but a memorial in Pozieres war cemetery in France.

     Extract from an e-mail

from a member of the Suddens family, who has given me a lot of help:-

     "Have you done much military research? I am particularly interested in one of Eliza Sudden's children, William(Bill). He was killed right near the end of the first world war, and Eliza apparently never came to terms with it. I have had some details from the war commission site, but I've just started to look at the various Royal Warks Regiment pages. Eliza's last words were about Bill...she apparently said "I can see him, I can see Bill" to my Nan, just before she died. I believe he was underage when he first joined up, like so many!"

 

      In Memory of
Private WILLIAM PEPPER

203310, 2nd/6th Bn., Royal Warwickshire Regiment
who died age 21
on 31 March 1918
Son of the late Mr. F. G. Pepper and Mrs. E. Graham (formerly Pepper), of 198, Stoney Stanton Rd., Coventry, Warwickshire.


      Remembered with honour
           POZIERES MEMORIAL



      Commemorated in perpetuity by
the Commonwealth War Graves Commission



Name: PEPPER, WILLIAM
Initials: W
Nationality: United Kingdom
Rank: Private
Regiment: Royal Warwickshire Regiment
Unit Text: 2nd/6th Bn.
Age: 21
Date of Death: 31/03/1918
Service No: 203310
Additional information: Son of the late Mr. F. G. Pepper and Mrs. E. Graham (formerly Pepper), of 198, Stoney Stanton Rd., Coventry, Warwickshire.
Casualty Type: Commonwealth War Dead
Grave/Memorial Reference: Panel 18 and 19
Cemetery: POZIERES MEMORIAL


      Cemetery Details

Cemetery: POZIERES MEMORIAL
Country: France
Locality: Somme
Visiting Information: The location or design of this site makes wheelchair access impossible. The Panel Numbers quoted at the end of each entry relate to the panels dedicated to the Regiment served with. In some instances where a casualty is recorded as attached to another Regiment, his name may alternatively appear within their Regimental Panels. Please refer to the on-site Memorial Register Introduction to determine the alternative panel numbers if you do not find the name within the quoted Panels.
Location Information: Pozieres is a village 6 kilometres north-east of the town of Albert. The Memorial encloses Pozieres British Cemetery which is a little south-west of the village on the north side of the main road, D929, from Albert to Pozieres. On the road frontage is an open arcade terminated by small buildings and broken in the middle by the entrance and gates. Along the sides and the back, stone tablets are fixed in the stone rubble walls bearing the names of the dead grouped under their Regiments. It should be added that, although the memorial stands in a cemetery of largely Australian graves, it does not bear any Australian names. The Australian soldiers who fell in France and whose graves are not known are commemorated on the National Memorial at Villers-Bretonneux.
Historical Information: The POZIERES MEMORIAL relates to the period of crisis in March and April 1918 when the Allied Fifth Army was driven back by overwhelming numbers across the former Somme battlefields, and the months that followed before the Advance to Victory, which began on 8 August 1918. The Memorial commemorates over 14,000 casualties of the United Kingdom and 300 of the South African Forces who have no known grave and who died on the Somme from 21 March to 7 August 1918. The Corps and Regiments most largely represented are The Rifle Brigade with over 600 names, The Durham Light Infantry with approximately 600 names, the Machine Gun Corps with over 500, The Manchester Regiment with approximately 500 and The Royal Horse and Royal Field Artillery with over 400 names. The memorial encloses POZIERES BRITISH CEMETERY, Plot II of which contains original burials of 1916, 1917 and 1918, carried out by fighting units and field ambulances. The remaining plots were made after the Armistice when graves were brought in from the battlefields immediately surrounding the cemetery, the majority of them of soldiers who died in the Autumn of 1916 during the latter stages of the Battle of the Somme, but a few represent the fighting in August 1918. There are now 2,755 Commonwealth servicemen of the First World War buried or commemorated in this cemetery. 1,375 of the burials are unidentified but there are special memorials to 23 casualties known or believed to be buried among them. The cemetery and memorial were designed by W H Cowlishaw.
 

 

 Eliza's elder brother, Thomas (the 11th child), married and had two sons, the youngest of which was Harold Temple Suddens.  He became headmaster of Broad Street school, Foleshill, Coventry and coached the boys for the Rugby team.  The team was very successful and had a good reputation in the world of local Rugby teams. Here is an extract from his obituary published in the Coventry Evening Telegraph in 1959.

      Mr. Harold T.Suddens, retired headmaster, a Coventry magistrate and one of the city's best known Rugby football personalities, died suddenly last night at his home, 158, Leamington Road, Coventry. Mr. Suddens, who was 67, recently moved to Leamington Road after living in Warwick Avenue for many years.  Coventry born, he studied at Cheltenham before joining the staff at Broad Street school in 1912.  He was to stay there throughout his teaching life, becoming headmaster in 1931 and guiding the fortunes of the school---until his retirement in 1952.  He was a prominent local educationist and as a teacher member of the Coventry Education Committee, was often outspoken in his criticism of the system of selective examinations for children at 10 or 11.

                                             Football Referee

        He saw the development of the comprehensive school system as a possible means of overcoming this examination difficulty but he urged the city to embark on only one comprehensive school to test it's value before undertaking others.

      In addition to fostering academic successes at Broad Street, Mr. Suddens made the school a redoubtable force in Rugby football circles. He had pleasure in later years, in seeing Old Boys making their name in big football, one of them, Ivor Preece, becoming captain of Coventry and England

      A Rugby referee since 1913, Mr. Suddens was the longest serving member of the Warwickshire Society of Referees.  He was a committee member of Coventry Football Club for 37 years, becoming secretary in 1925.

      In 1947, on the death of Mr. C. H. Broadhurst, he became chairman and he held the post until 1957.  He was also a past president of the Warwickshire Union.

10 Years a J.P.

      Cricket was his other main sporting interest and he was elected honorary secretary of the Coventry and North Warwickshire club in 1952

      Mr. Suddens became a justice of the peace ten years ago (1949 ibid.) and was elected chairman of the Coventry magistrates last November.  He continued to follow his life's interests keenly and maintained close links with his former colleagues in education.  A month ago, he became one of two trustees of the new teacher's centre which is to be established by the Education Committee.

      A member of Coventry Y.M.C.A. for nearly half a century, Mr. Suddens was president in 1954.  In the previous December, he had married Miss Edith Nichol, a Coventry school teacher who survives him.

     A strange sequel to this event occurred when I was working as a care attendant at Queenswood rest home in 1979/80.  One of my ladies was a Mrs. Edith Suddens.  As I remember her, she was a softly spoken Scots lady.  Quite elderly and very sweet. She was also quite frail, but washed and dressed herself.  I believe she passed away while I was there, but I can't be certain, as of course, I had no idea that her husband had been my first cousin twice removed.  Nan never mentioned her cousins to me and neither did my Mother but there again, I had no reason to be interested in those days!