Heroes and Rebels in the Family Tree—Susannah Cossey Redgrave

 A civilian, Susannah died on 22nd of July 1941 at the age of 67. 

Susannah was born at Lowestoft around July 1874, a daughter of Edmund Redgrave (1836)-1911) and Anna Marie Crowe. She was baptised at Saint Margaret’s Church on 4 October 1874. In 1881 her family lived at 22 Mariners Street, Lowestoft. By 1891 they were living at Sudbury Cottages, 1 Bevan Street, Lowestoft, and Susannah was a domestic servant.

Susannah’s father, Edmund, married Caroline Harriet Yaxley (1833-1859) at Yarmouth on August 26, 1855.  He was 19 years old and she was 21 years of age.  They had one child:

            Edmund James Redgrave (1857-1918)

Caroline died in July 1859 at Yarmouth, Norfolk, England when Edmund was only 2 years old. Edmund lived with his mother’s parents until he was 13 year-old after which he lived with his father and his second wife, Anna Marie Crowe.

Edmund Redgrave married Anna Marie Crowe (1843-1914) at St. Peter’s Chapel, Lowestoft on September 3, 1870.  Anna Marie was 27 years old at the time of her marriage to Edmund and had never married before.  Together, Edmund and Anna Marie had eight children.  They were:

1.      Ann Maria Crowe Redgrave 1871-1955

2.      Martha Louisa Phinn Redgrave 1873-1931

3.      Susannah Cossey Redgrave 1874-1941

4.      Beatrice Elizabeth Hales Redgrave 1875-1953

5.      Joseph William Hastings Redgrave 1875-1941

6.      Frederick Charles Redgrave 1878-1917

7.      Helena “Eleanor” Gertrude Redgrave 1880-1941

8.      James Ernest Bly Redgrave 1884-1918

On February 9, 1896 Susannah married George Robert Draper at Saint Margaret’s Church. George was a smacksman and they both gave their address as 5 Selby Street. By 1901 they were living at 26 Saint Leonard’s Road, and this would be Susannah’s home for the rest of her life. George Robert Draper was the skipper on the trawler Forward, when he attempted to disembark from the smack to the shore and fell into the water in the Lowestoft Trawl Basin and drowned on October 24, 1903.  

In 1911 Susannah was a laundress. On June 18, 1917, her brother Frederick Charles Redgrave was killed while serving in the 2nd Suffolk Regiment as a soldier on the battlefields of France and Flanders.  He left a widow, May Florence Page and two young children:  Lily May Redgrave and Charles Edmund Redgrave.

On April 7, 1916, Susannah’s youngest brother left his job as a fish packer and enlisted in the 97th Training Regiment at the age of 32.  On September 23, 1916, Private James Ernest Bly Redgrave transferred to the Infantry and was eventually sent to fight with the British Expeditionary Force in France. On August 24, 1917, James was admitted to the 3rd Scottish General hospital for wounds received on August 14, 1917 in France when a bullet caused a flesh wound of the middle of his left thigh.  He was discharged on October 27, 1917 and sent back to his unit.  James was killed in action on April 9, 1918 while serving with the Royal West Kent Regiment.

Susannah would have been devastated by the loss of her husband and then her father in 1911 followed by the death of her mother in 1914 and her step-brother in 1918. The loss was surely compounded by the further loss of two of three brothers during fighting on the battlefields of France.

By 1921 Susannah’s sister, Eleanor Redgrave, and her children, lived with Susannah and the extended family still lived together in 1939.   

During the night on July 22, 1941, during a particularly heavy bombardment from a German air raid, Susannah Cossey Redgrave and her sister Helena “Eleanor” Gertude Redgrave, along with Eleanor’s twin daughters Beatrice May Redgrave (married to Frederick L Harvey) and Lily May Redgrave (single woman), both age 24, were in their home at 26 Saint Leonards Road, Lowestoft, Suffolk, England when the house was struck and blown up by a bomb.  All four residents died that night.

One Lowestoft resident, Alfred J. Turner, recorded the events of that night in his published diaries which he titled, Letters from Lowestoft--An account of most of World War Two as experienced by a resident of Lowestoft.


Tuesday 22 July 1941

'Siren' sounded last night at midnight. We went to sleep and I heard terrible crashes at 1.10am and then silence. I put the light on for 10 minutes and then went back to sleep again

I met Crawford at 11.00 who had been down to Lorne Park Road and he took me to see the damage.

It is colossal. They say that four bombs were dropped together right in the area 'Box Iron Square'. Three houses opposite our house 'Mizpah' were flat and Crawford thoughts ours would have to be demolished but I don't know yet. Our tenants were in a shelter and had no idea of the magnitude of the damage.

Crawford reckoned that between 200 and 250 houses had been more or less damaged, among which are 20 demolished. Casualties we hear were 7 killed, 10 missing and 17 badly injured but I am afraid that there may be many more killed as the whole place was a mere rubbish heap.

The rescuers found pieces of bodies that night which they put in pails and when daylight came they filled a sack with them and asked Miss Breese to take it to the mortuary but someone else told her not to do so, and some men took it up.

A bomb fell at the foot of a shelter and blew everything and everyone to fragments. There were six people it in. Our tenant told us a man was blown through his roof and was still lying on the ceiling. All three roads got it and other roads have roofs lifted and, of course, thousands of windows gone. The blast went north so we did not get it at all but several shops in London Road South had the plate glass gone, from Carlton Road to Windsor Road - the shop at that corner got it badly.

Some of those shops affected are Hailey, Parr, Adamson, Gertie's old shop ('Starlings'), Bunyards, etc. and on the opposite side of the road it was quite as bad. I only mention this superficial damage to tell the reach of the blast from the Lorne Park Road bombs, which must be half a mile away and not even in a direct line. I have not been down there since. In addition to the casualties I have already mentioned there were dozens of sailors sleeping in the area and how many of them were killed I don't know. It is the very worst blitz that we have had and the whole of it was completely over in ten seconds. The plane went back over the sea without a shot being fired.

Editor's note: 'Starlings': 210a London Road South, described in 'Kelly's' as 'Miss A. Collingwood' (Gertie's daughter) - wools of all descriptions, art needlework, silks and fancy goods, orders taken for knitting and all needlework',

The 'All clear' went at 2.00am. The funny thing about it is that a tremendous lot of people had no idea that it was a bomb. Pounder's clerk, Watson, with other men was fire-watching at the bank and they commented at the time, "Two guns, what are they for?" Ever so many heard the 'swish' as they called it, Pounder was one, who said that he thought it was coming on his roof. I called mother who asked what it was and I told her bombs on the town or on the sea nearby as we felt no vibration. We were very glad you were not here.

Oh, I forgot to say, the 'Siren' went on again the same night at 2.30am but we slept through it and we only heard the 'All clear' when it went at 4.00am. I hear they went to Reydon.

 FOOTNOTE:

“Nearly 300 people were killed in the town [Lowestoft] as a result of eighty-three separate air raids [during World War II]. Lowestoft was a designated ‘Gun Zone’ and so was provided with heavy anti-aircraft guns for its defence, arranged around the town in four batteries, in addition to numerous lighter Bofor guns. More passive defence was eventually provided by land-based barrage balloons, the catalyst for their installation a raid on 12 May 1943 when thirty-three people were killed and fifty-five injured by a raid in which thirty-two German fighter-bombers flew low over the town.” A GUIDE TO SECOND WORLD WAR ARCHAEOLOGY IN SUFFOLK Robert Liddiard and David Sims

Lowestoft was said to be one of the most heavily bombed towns in the UK per head of population. Over 4,000 bombs were dropped on Lowestoft during World War II.


Genealogy:  Susannah Cossey Redgrave 1874-1941 was the wife of George Robert Draper 1870-1903 and his father was Jeremiah Draper 1843-1911 and his father was Robert Draper 1807-1883 and his mother was Susanna Wright 1781-1861 and her mother was Elizabeth Baldry 1741-1821 and her father was Farrer Baldry 1709-1774 and his brother was John Baldry 1700-1758 and his son was John Baldry 1755-1833 and his daughter was Susanna Baldry 1774-1858 and her daughter was Phoebe Mayes 1804-1873 and her son was Thomas Forster 1837-1888 and his daughter was Caroline Forster 1864-1906 and her husband was George “Pikey” William Welch-Adams 1867-1940.

 

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