Canewdon Photos

I have just seen this article by John Buxton (son of Albert & Maria Buxton). John Buxton was also my grandad. My mother (Joyce) was his daughter from his last marriage. I have been working on my family tree and it would be great to be able to get in touch with you John or your sister Anne. 

If the date of the first photograph is c.1910 and the gentleman standing in the doorway of the Anchor is John Buxton then he is my grandfather. John (known as Jack ) Buxton was born in Canewdon in the late 1840s (1847 I think and therefore aged c.63 years in the photo) and worked as a brickmaker. I don't have the dates/details to hand but in the 1860s he moved to Darlington, Co. Durham where he continued to work at brickmaking, married and had a son. His wife died at the birth of their son or shortly thereafter. John moved back to Canewdon where he and his son lived with John's mother. He married again and had more children and continued to work as a brickmaker. He took over the Anchor, sometime between  1890 ( when William Woolf was listed as owner) and 1894 when Kelly's directory lists John as owner of the incorrectly named 'Auction' public house. He retired from the business around 1914 - he was indicated as living in Southend-on-Sea in 1916 HOWEVER this is incorrect as his second wife having died, he married for the third time and had three more children, two sons - Reginald (known as Charlie) and Albert Hanbury - and a daughter. Albert (my father) was born in Canewdon in 1918 ..... when John was c.71 years of age .... Albert died in 1967 in Bridgwater, Somerset and Reginald sometime later, also in Somerset.

Delightful photos!

It would take me too long to do every photo.  Perhaps the details of just the first photo will show just how much information there is. This first photo of the Anchor dates from about 1910. The publican in the doorway is Jonathan Buxton who was the landlord from 1898 until the first world war. His sister Mrs. Potter was the landlady of The Woodsman, Thundersley. His youngest son Johnathan was a regular in the Norfolk Regiment but sadly died of TB in captivity on 3rd October 1917 following his capture at the surrender of Kut, Mesopotamia in April the previous year. He is buried in the Roman Catholic Cemetery, Angora. The ladies on the right are said to be from the Clarnico Sweet Factory and on an excursion from Leigh-on-Sea as part of a company outing from the factory in Hackney Wick, but this is unconfirmed. By this time the Anchor pub occupied the two buildings closest to the camera and one to the rear of the property. It was previously only in the first building but would be extended again to incorporate the 3rd building and was later extended even more into the gap between this and Russel Row cottages.