Frank John George Porter (1897-1959/1960), plumber

Childhood

George was born on 11 May 1897 at Downton, a village six miles southeast of Salisbury. His father, Frank, was a journeyman plumber who, by 1911, had become a master plumber and house decorator. His mother, Mary, was the daughter of a farm labourer.

George and his three younger siblings—Beatrice, Ethel, and Ernest—were baptised together at Downton parish church on 21 January 1911.

By the age of fourteen, George was apprenticed as a house painter, probably within his father’s business.

First World War

During the First World War, George served as a private with the Second Battalion of the Dorset Regiment.[1] Like many young tradesmen of his generation, his apprenticeship and early adult life were interrupted by military service.

Hardington Moor

After the war, George obtained work as a plumber with Hodder Brothers, a building firm based at Kingston, Yeovil. The 1921 census recorded him boarding with Walter James Ash at Hardington Moor. Ash had previously worked as a transit clerk for Southern Command at Salisbury.

Swindon

George later moved to Swindon, where he married Elsie Ada Lee in 1927. Elsie was the daughter of Sidney Lee, who was employed as an engine fitter’s labourer in the Great Western Railway Works at Swindon.

George and Elsie had one child, Betty Julia, born on 17 November 1929. In 1937, they lived at 4 Merton Avenue, Upper Stratton, and by 1939, at 188 Whitworth Road.[2] George worked as a master plumber.

By September 1939, George’s widowed father and all of George’s siblings lived in the town. Ethel lived at 20 Bessemer Road, with her husband, her father and her sister, Beatrice, while Ernest lived at 12 Broad Street. It remains unclear who moved to Swindon first.

Two court cases from the 1930s do not show George in a good light. In 1937, he was prosecuted for careless driving after a collision between his car and a bicycle left a 61-year-old man fatally injured. The Bench decided the case had not been proved. [3]

In August 1939, George was arrested for driving under the influence of alcohol. A motorcyclist witnessed him driving erratically, spoke to him, and afterwards called a policeman. In court, it emerged that George had drunk a total of three pints in three different pubs. His solicitor argued that this would have had little effect as George took a fair amount of drink every day. George claimed his erratic driving was due to broken shock absorbers.

He said the motorcyclist’s manner and allegations had excited him, and when he became excited, he was a bundle of nerves. A retired policeman testified that George was “very lively and spirited”, while his solicitor referred to his “excitable and garrulous nature.” George admitted a previous conviction and a fine of £3 9s for driving dangerously. He was fined £10 and banned from driving for twelve months. [4]

While it is possible that his wartime service had some bearing on his later behaviour, the surviving evidence is too limited to attribute his drinking or nervous temperament to any form of war-related trauma.

George died at Swindon in late 1959 or early 1960 at the age of 63. Elsie remarried and died in 1979 at the age of 72.

Conclusion

George’s life illustrates the opportunities and mobility afforded by skilled trades in the early twentieth century. Born into a plumbing family in rural Wiltshire, his life was interrupted by war before his work led him briefly to Hardington and Yeovil, ultimately bringing him to the expanding railway town of Swindon, where much of his family eventually settled. Newspaper reports from the late 1930s depict him as a man of nervous and excitable temperament, whose behaviour occasionally led to court appearances.

References

[1] World War I Service Medal and Award Rolls, 1914-1920.

[2] North Wilts Herald, 28 May 1937, p.13; 22 September 1939, p.5.

[3] North Wilts Herald, 28 May 1937, p.13.

[4] North Wilts Herald, 22 September 1939, p.5.