Norwich – Earlham Cemetery (Alfred William Slaughter)

This is the grave of Alfred William Slaughter located in the war graves area of Earlham Cemetery, although as an aside I’ve now discovered there’s another military burial area (where members of the Britannia Barracks were buried, but this became full by the middle of the First World War) and so I’ll have to pop back at some point.

One question I have about this grave, if anyone happens to know, is what it’s doing here. The Commonwealth War Graves Commission (CWGC) consider anything after 31 August 1921 to be outside their scope until the Second World War. So, the CWGC list that there are 534 war dead at Earlham Cemetery, of which Alfred is excluded. So, quite why he was buried here I don’t know, although it explains why the format of the text on the gravestone is different to nearly all of the others.

Alfred William Slaughter was baptised on 29 September 1875 at St. Lawrence’s Church in Norwich, the son of Alfred William Slaughter and Margaret Caroline Slaughter (nee Springall). By the time of the 1911 census, he was living at 28 Rose Lane in Norwich, where he worked as a shopkeeper. He was living with his wife Lilian Maud, and his sons Alfred William and Clifford Henry. For reasons unknown, all of the family had been born in Norwich, but the younger Alfred William was born in Nottingham.

Alfred died on 8 February 1924 at the age of 48, although I can’t find under what circumstances that happened. His probate was completed on 18 June 1924 and he left £1,251 to his wife, Lilian Maud. His wife had moved to 23 Hastings Avenue in Hellesdon by the time of the 1939 register, where she was listed as living on her own. Her probate was completed later that year, when it was noted that she died at the Post Office at Griston. The details of her death were added to Alfred’s grave, although the written record says that she died on 29 March 1951, nor the 26 March listed on the gravestone.

So, why Alfred has a grave where he does, I’m not sure. Unfortunately, his military records don’t seem to have survived, making it harder to resolve that little mystery. This is yet another situation where I’m sure that there’s a story here, I just can’t work out what it is.