Photo: James Pasby
20828 Private
J.S. Tindall
Cheshire Regiment
5th January 1915
Jacky Cooper has provided the following:
Joseph Stoddart Tindall was the eldest child of Joseph Tindall and Annie Jane Stoddart who had married in the autumn of 1890 in the Cockermouth area. Joseph was a coal miner and after they married the couple lived next to Joseph’s parents at Flimby Green. In the spring of 1891 Annie gave birth to their son, Joseph Stoddart Tindall. Whilst the family was still living in Flimby Annie had two more children, both daughters, in 1893 and 1897.
Sometime between 1897 and 1901 the family moved to Scotland, and when the census was taken in the spring of 1901 they were living at 2 Bishop Street, Hamilton, Lanarkshire. It isn’t clear how long they remained in Scotland, but they had moved back to the Cockermouth area by 1907, when Joseph’s father died.
Annie remarried in 1909, by which time Joseph had left school and was earning his own living. The family moved to Swalwell, and by 1911 when the census return was made Joseph was lodging with the Nicholson family at 4 James Street, Blaydon on Tyne. Joseph was working in the coal industry as a shifter, meaning he would repair passageways in the mine to make sure they were kept free from obstructions.
Towards the end of the following year Joseph married Isabella Macdonald in the Gateshead area, and Isabella gave birth to their daughter Annie Jane in the autumn of 1914.
When war broke out in August 1914 Joseph was quick to volunteer; he attested in Gateshead and was posted to 16th Battalion, Cheshire Regiment. This was a bantam battalion, formed in Birkenhead at the beginning of December 1814. Joseph didn’t get very far into his initial training, before long he was taken to 1st Northern General Hospital in Newcastle where he died on 5 January 1915.
After the war Isabella, left to bring up her infant daughter alone, set out for a new life in Australia. She and Annie boarded ss Beltana on 6 June 1920 and set sail for Sydney. Annie married in 1935, and died in 1942 in Newcastle, New South Wales.
Joseph’s mother eventually went back to Whitehaven, and in 1939 was living at 26 Monkwray Cottages. She died in Whitehaven in 1952.
Joseph Stoddart Tindall is remembered in Swalwell on S85.01 and in Whickham on W86.01
