Alce, Harry Earl

Lance Corporal TF/1984, 1/5th Battalion, The Royal Sussex Regiment. 1st Division Died of wounds at home 9 June 1915. Aged 25. Son of Harry Earl and Esther Alce of Bermuda Cottage, Hadlow Down. Born in Heathfield and enlisted in Hastings. Buried in St. Marks Churchyard Hadlow Down

Henderson, Elsie Marian (28 May 1880 – 1st July 1967)

Elsie Marian Henderson, later Baroness de Coudenhove,  was a British painter and sculptor notable for her animal paintings.
Henderson was born in Eastbourne in Sussex and with the encouragement of her mother, a keen amateur painter, she attended the South Kensington Schools before studying at the Slade School of Fine Art between 1903 and 1905. Henderson continued her art education in Paris. For periods of time, between 1908 and 1912, she took lessons at various ateliers in the city including the Academie Moderne, the Académie Colarossi, the Académie de La Palette and at Cercle Russe. In 1912 Henderson studied with Othon Friesz before spending 1913 in Italy. After some time on the island of Guernsey, Henderson enrolled at the Chelsea Polytechnic in 1916, where she was taught lithography by the artist Francis Ernest Jackson. In London she became a frequent visitor to London Zoo and animal drawings and paintings became a major theme of her work. In 1924 Henderson had her first solo exhibition at the Leicester Galleries in London.

A Tiger 1916

In 1928 Henderson married Henri Baron de Coudenhove, the French consul to Guernsey. The couple lived on the island during World War II and throughout the German occupation. Baron de Coudenhove died towards the end of the war and in 1946 Henderson moved to Sunnyside Cottage, Wilderness Lane, Hadlow Down in Sussex with her sister Mildred She continued painting into the last years of her life. Continue reading “Henderson, Elsie Marian (28 May 1880 – 1st July 1967)”

Noakes, Harry PC 214

PC Noakes was  born in Hadlow Down in 1890 a Sergeant number 204669 in the Hampshire Regiment 15th (Hampshire Yeomanry) Battalion. He died age 28 the husband of Alice Annie Noakes.
Harry Noakes was killed at Tynecotstraat on the 9th. August 1918 and is remembered on the Tyne Cot Memorial.
He enlisted at Winchester when he gave his residence as Crowborough, Hants (?)
Harry Noakes joined the Surrey Constabulary on 16th September 1912 aged 22, and was sworn in at Guildford before Col. Ricardo and Capt Briscoe on 20th September 1912. His appointment number was 1630 and his collar number 214. At the time of his appointment his gave his trade as Groom working for Mr Les Chattas at Highams.
There were considerable allied advances throughout the Western Front during the second week of August 1918. The Tyne Cot Memorial is one of four memorials to the missing in Belgian Flanders, which cover the area known as the Ypres Salient.
© Hadlow Down Village Trust 2023

Ford, Margaret Ann

Mrs Edward Ford (Margaret Ann Watson), 48, was the daughter of William and Catherine Margaret (née McGregor) Watson of Bracadale, Isle of Skye.
She married Edward Ford, an Englishman, at Hadlow Down, Sussex, on 17th June, 1890.
They had five children Frances, Dollina, Edward, William and Maggie. Following the birth of the couple’s fifth child, Robina Maggie, on 25th April 1904, Edward had deserted the family and Margaret was left to eke out an existence as a poultry farmer. Her eldest daughter, Frances, was already in the United States working as a domestic servant, and so impressed the family with tales of a better life that Margaret decided to leave their home in Sussex for America. Travelling with them was Margaret’s sister Eliza with her family and a friend of Frances’, Phoebe Alice Harknett. Margaret bought ticket no. W./C. 6608 (£34 7s 6d) for her and her children, they boarded the Titanic at Southampton.
The entire party of ten were lost in the sinking. None of their bodies were identified amongst those recovered after the sinking. Edward Ford later filed a claim for the loss of his family and was awarded five shillings per week.

© Hadlow Down Village Trust 2023

Costello, Brigadier-General Edmund William CMG, CVO, DSO (7 August 1873 – 7 June 1949)

Brigadier-General Edmund William Costello, CMG, CVO, DSO was born on 7th. August 1873 in Sheikhbudin, near Dera Ghazi Khan, Punjab on the North-West Frontier of India and was a British Indian Army officer and a recipient of the Victoria Cross, the highest and most prestigious award for gallantry in the face of the enemy that can be awarded to British and Commonwealth forces.  The son of a colonel in the Indian Medical Service. He was educated in England at Beaumont College, Stonyhurst College and the Royal Military College, Sandhurst. In 1892 he was commissioned intothe West Yorkshire Regiment but transferred to the Indian Army in 1894 and was posted to the 22nd Punjab Infantry.
He was 23 years old and attached to Punjab Infantry during the Malakand Frontier War, when the following deed took place for which he was awarded the VC.
Costello’s connections to Hadlow Down are by his marriage to Elsie Maud L Huggins the daughter of Charles Lang Huggins, of Hadlow Grange, at St Peter and St Edward′s church, Pimlico, on 16 October 1902 Continue reading “Costello, Brigadier-General Edmund William CMG, CVO, DSO (7 August 1873 – 7 June 1949)”

Rowden, Diana (31 January 1915 – 6 July 1944)

Diana Hope Rowden served in the Womens Auxiliary Air Force and was an agent for the United Kingdom‘s clandestine Special Operations Executive (SOE) during World War II. Rowden was a member of SOE’s Acrobat circuit in occupied France where she operated as a courier until arrested by the Gestapo. She was subsequently executed at the Natzweiler-Struthof concentration camp. Continue reading “Rowden, Diana (31 January 1915 – 6 July 1944)”