We took a bit of time out from staying with Hilary's family in England to drive to Gloucester to find Robert Thompson's grave. It's hardly any surprise that there is no grave marked - he was buried in the common ground in Tredworth Road Cemetery. In physical terms it's just a big grassy area at the corner of the cemetery, but the office there has a detailed map of the plots so we could work out reasonably accurately where his remains lie. Interestingly he's buried in the Catholic area - I wonder what the family would have made of that back in 1911 if they'd known!
He was buried in Plot 3010A, and his funeral service was held by a Mr E Bodenham. listed in the records as a "Lay Missionary". So we laid some flowers on the spot, planted a wee sod of grass from Ballyfrench that Fred had dug up for me the Sunday before, and took some photos.
Then we went down into Gloucester, to see Llanthony Dock (which the cemetery records said was exactly where he drowned). It's now the location of the National Waterways Museum for Britain, and (ironically) has lots of lifebuoys along the dockside. Maybe there weren't any lifebuoys there in 1911. Robert may well have walked down this dockside, only to be dragged back along it a short time later as a lifeless corpse. So I'm now wondering if there are local newspaper reports of his death held in the Gloucester libraries?
The pic below is of Jacob and Maggie Jane at the Museum (sadly for them the cafe and gift shop were both closed!) - Hilary and Charlie were snoozing in the car.
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