The contents you are looking for have moved. You will be
redirected to the new location automatically in 5 seconds.
Please bookmark the correct page at
http://www.paulinedodd.com/tedbiography.html
Biography of Edward James Tuttle
FROM 1895 - 1914

Edward James Tuttle 1895-1914
The Historical Biography of Edward (Teddie) James
����������TUTTLE.
����������Edward James was the youngest son of Edward Robert and
����������Georgiana Tuttle (nee Wright) . He was born on 3rd
����������February 1895
����������He was born in a rented house in Mattishall,East
����������Dereham,Norfolk, which to this day is still referred to
����������as "Tuttle's Corner".
����������His father was a farm labourer and probably earning
����������less than �1 per week in wages so they were by no means
����������a wealthy family although they would have had the
����������facilities for growing their own food and having eggs
����������from their own chickens etc.
����������They were Primitive Methodists and a deeply religious
����������family,Edward Robert was known to regularly walk over
����������thirty miles on a Sunday to preach as a lay preacher
����������in the tiny village chapels at Carbrook and
����������Winfarthing.Georgiana had probably established
Primitive Methodism in the family as up until their
marriage the Tuttle family had been Church of
England.
����������Teddie was born in the reign of a fading Victoria
����������and the Marquis of Salisbury was head of a conservative
����������government.
����������He was the youngest of seven children, there had been
����������eight but Edward Park had died of bronchitis at the age
����������of one year in 1882. His other brothers and sister
����������were Arthur b.1882 Edward Park b.1884 Robert
����������b.1886 Gladys Marion b.1888 Ernest William (my
����������grandfather) b.1890 and Mildred May b. 1892.
����������He would have been two years old when England and the
����������Commonwealth were celebrating the Diamond Jubilee of
����������Queen Victoria in 1897, the following year a red
����������postage stamp had been issued stating: "We hold a
����������vaster Empire than has ever been".
����������There would have been sadness at this time in the
����������family as Robert, who was twelve, died of sugar
����������diabetes.
����������At the age of four he would have started school, round
about the time of the Boer War. He went to school in
Mattishall, a small country school the average
attendance being 140 pupils in 1900. There was
compulsory school attendance up to the age of ten and
was not raised until 1918 to the age of 14,although if
for some reason he had registered too few attendances
then he would have had to stay until he was 13.
����������There is no doubt that he would have walked to school
����������as it was not far away and also the cost of a bicycle
at that time was �10 or ten weeks wages!
����������Life at home would have been very basic. There was no
����������running water, no electricity the rent would have been
����������about 35p per week ,candles were 35p for three pounds
����������and a good pair of working boots would have cost �1,a
whole weeks wages.Income tax was 5 1/2d to 6din the �1.
����������Between 1900 and 1905, the years that Teddie was at
����������school, the papers would have been telling a very
different story of the world outside the little country
village of Mattishall:
����������Slavery was abolished in Nigeria, The first petrol
����������motor-cycles appeared in Britain, the Boar War ended
����������and in 1902 Balfour became Prime Minister of Great
����������Britain. Kipling wrote the 'Just-So'stories,Conon Doyle
����������The Hound of the Baskervilles and Beatrix Potter -Peter
����������Rabbit. The first radio message was heard over the
����������Atlantic and Emmeline Pankhurst founded the Womens
����������Social and Political Union. The Rolls Royce Company was
����������founded.Motor buses appeared in London and
����������Picasso,Cezanne and Matisse were painting future
����������masterpieces.
����������When Teddie left school at the age of about ten he went
����������to work for Mr.Neave who was a grocer. He had a
����������shop in the little village of Mattishall and sold just
����������about everything that was needed to sustain life in a
����������small village. Mr. Neave was the owner of the house
����������that the Tuttles lived in so it is very likely that
����������they are one and the same person.
����������It appears that once a week Mr. Neave would fill up his
����������horse and cart with every imaginable food and household
item and visit the outlying tiny scattered villages and
Teddie would go with him to help him sell his wares.
Teddie it seems was a very friendly and good-looking
young boy who would regularly call in at a friend in
Welborne and partake of some of her mothers shortbread.
The friend,Jessie Matthews, remembers clearly that the
horse often wore a hat with its ears sticking out!
����������Mary Barham-Johnson was born in the same year as Teddie
����������and is still very active, knew of the family. She
����������remembers: "There were two cottages in a lane east of
����������this farm where lived old Mrs Bunn and Mrs Mendham and
����������next door I saw a new born baby (the first I had ever
����������seen). We used to take soup in cans to these people,
����������and also to Mrs.Tuttle who was bed-ridden at the little
����������farm on Norwich Road at the bottom of school lane.
����������She could remember old Mrs Tuttle and going to see her
����������in a tiny stuffy bedroom and noticed that there was no
����������fireplace and the ventilator had been pasted over! She
����������could not remember any children. She was not allowed to
����������mix with the local village children for fear of
����������headlice! ( She was the Rectors daughter).
����������She tells also of a murder in Welborne in 1907.Jimmy
����������Green had been stalking her father with a gun a shot
was heard and they all thought that the rector had
������been killed but infact it appears that a poor Mrs Smalls
�������who�had been "picking stones",was found dead in a field
����������and Jimmy Green dead in a ditch.
����������In April 1914 Teddie was the best man at his sister
����������Millies wedding, it was a very special wedding as the
����������heading in the newspaper cutting was:
��������� MOTOR�WEDDING.....the bridal pair motored to the
����������chapel...................... Mr.Edward Tuttle was best
����������man.On entering the chapel the organist (Mrs.King)
played "The voice that breathed o'er Eden"......
����������The years between 1906 and 1914 had also been quite
����������exciting. Colour photography had been invented,The
����������Olympic games were held in London,Campbell - Bannerman
����������resigned and was succeeded by Asquith.Louis Bleriot
����������crossed the channel in an areoplane.Edward V11
����������died and George V was crowned ,plastics were
����������invented.The Old Age Pension, National Insurance and
����������the first steps of the modern welfare state were
started. There were Suffragette riots in
Whitehall.Scott reached the South Pole only to find
that Amundsen had beaten him to it. The Titanic sank
with the loss of 1513 lives. In 1914 Archduke Ferdinand
of Austria and his wife were assassinated,Austria
declared war on Russia and then France.Britain declared
war on Germany.
RETURN TO GALLIPOLI PAGE