On our transcript of graveyard memorials, the stone (numbered 173) reads:
There are just two Commonwealth War Graves in St Andrew's Churchyard in Heddon on the Wall and I had often wondered how Pilot Officer Trotter of the Royal Australian Air Force came to be buried here. Rev. Audrey McCartan put me in touch with Jean's daughter, Jenefer Creamer, who kindly helped fill in the story.
In 2012, at a private family gathering in St Andrew's Churchyard in Heddon, overseen by Rev. Audrey McCartan, the ashes of a lady, Jean Bainbridge Cummings, who had recently died in Canada, were buried between the Commonwealth War Grave of her first husband, Pilot Officer J A Trotter and the unmarked grave of her father, Thomas Matthew Scott.
Pilot Officer
J.A. Trotter
Royal Australian Air Force
24th August 1942 age 31
Greater love hath no man.
Commonwealth War Grave of Pilot Officer J A Trotter. Photo A Curtis (2011).
The Commonwealth War Graves Commission provides more information:
James Arthur Trotter, 402454, Pilot Officer with RAAF, died 20/08/1942. Son of Arthur & Lillian Trotter of Sydney, New South Wales; husband of Jean Bainbridge Fullarton Trotter, of Carruthers, Saskatchewan, Canada.
North East War Memorials Project quotes RAF Bomber Command Losses of the Second World War:
P/O J.A. Trotter was a member of the crew of Stirling bomber N6083 OJ-N which took off from Lakenheath (Suffolk) on a mission to Frankfurt. An engine caught fire almost immediately, causing the aircraft to crash just a mile away from the end of the runway. All the crew were killed.
James Arthur Trotter, 402454, Pilot Officer with RAAF, died 20/08/1942. Son of Arthur & Lillian Trotter of Sydney, New South Wales; husband of Jean Bainbridge Fullarton Trotter, of Carruthers, Saskatchewan, Canada.
North East War Memorials Project quotes RAF Bomber Command Losses of the Second World War:
P/O J.A. Trotter was a member of the crew of Stirling bomber N6083 OJ-N which took off from Lakenheath (Suffolk) on a mission to Frankfurt. An engine caught fire almost immediately, causing the aircraft to crash just a mile away from the end of the runway. All the crew were killed.
Pilot Officer J A Trotter, St Andrew's Churchyard, Heddon on the Wall. Photo A Curtis (2015).
The lady who died in Canada was born on March 23, 1919 in Gateshead and given the full name, Jean Bainbridge Fullerton Scott. Her father was Thomas Matthew Scott, born at Sugley near Lemington in 1893), and her mother Jane Holmes Scott (nee Wright), born in Berwick on Tweed in 1892. They had married in 1918. Jean was educated at St. Hild’s Teaching College, part of the University of Durham.
How she met and married the Australian airman, James Trotter, I still hope to find out, but it is possible that he had trained locally, maybe at RAF Ouston.
Following his death, she emigrated to Canada with her mother, younger sister and son, Timothy. She remarried a recently-ordained Anglican minister, both Jean and Timothy taking his surname, Cummings.
Jean's obituary was published in Vancouver Sun and/or The Province on Oct. 22, 2011:
How she met and married the Australian airman, James Trotter, I still hope to find out, but it is possible that he had trained locally, maybe at RAF Ouston.
Following his death, she emigrated to Canada with her mother, younger sister and son, Timothy. She remarried a recently-ordained Anglican minister, both Jean and Timothy taking his surname, Cummings.
Jean's obituary was published in Vancouver Sun and/or The Province on Oct. 22, 2011:
From 1950 she spent most of her life in British Columbia and settled into the roles of home-maker, new mother to Jenefer, teacher, and, likely the most challenging of all, that of being the minister’s wife.
She requested that her ashes be scattered at a later date in her English village of Heddon-on-the-Wall, where her sister, her father, her first husband, and other relatives are buried.
Jean's father, Thomas Matthew Scott, was baptised at Sugley on 16 April 1893. The record shows his father was Thomas Bell Scott (born Newburn, 1858) and his mother was Mary (born Benwell, 1861).
The 1911 Census shows them living at 41 Union Hall Road, Lemington-On-Tyne. Thomas Bell Scott (53) was working as a clerk for a Land Agent and Thomas Matthew Scott (18) was a clerk for a Stock & Shares Broker. His brother, John Scott (14) was a Solicitors Clerk and he had two sisters, Mary Elizabeth (19) and Annie (16). All four children were born at Sugley. Jenefer Creamer told me that the two girls, her maiden aunts, lived at 41 Union Hall, the family home, until they died.
The 1911 Census shows them living at 41 Union Hall Road, Lemington-On-Tyne. Thomas Bell Scott (53) was working as a clerk for a Land Agent and Thomas Matthew Scott (18) was a clerk for a Stock & Shares Broker. His brother, John Scott (14) was a Solicitors Clerk and he had two sisters, Mary Elizabeth (19) and Annie (16). All four children were born at Sugley. Jenefer Creamer told me that the two girls, her maiden aunts, lived at 41 Union Hall, the family home, until they died.
Thomas Bell Scott's father was John Scott (born 1818, Whittingham) and his mother, Jane Scott (born 1818, Felton). John Scott's family lived in Newburn and he was occupied as a joiner. His baptism record (Whittingham, 3rd May 1818) names his father as John and mother as Esther (born 1786, Elsdon). On the 1851 census she a widow of 65 living with her son's family in Union Hall Road.
Vicar's Letter by Rev C E A Blackburn in Heddon Parish Church Magazine, October 1942 (courtesy E Eames).
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