meadows arnold frost + rosalie russell
Meadows was born in Chester on 12 August 1848 and baptised at the Crooke Street Presbyterian Church. He was the eldest son of Meadows Frost and Matilda Berend.
by Paolo Uccello
He married Rosalie Croshaw Elizabeth Russell at St Stephen the Martyr in Marylebone, London on 25 May 1874. Rosalie was the daughter of John Fuller Russell, an Anglican priest, and his wife Rosalie. Shortly before their marriage, Meadows was baptised in the Church of England possibly because Rosalie’s father insisted on his conversion and baptism prior to agreeing to the marriage.
They remained in Marylebone after their wedding and their first son, Meadows, was born there on 18 April 1875. But a year later, they had moved to Liverpool where they welcomed daughter Rosalie Meadows who was baptised on 20 September 1876 at St John in Frankby near Birkenhead. Son Evelyn Fairfax Meadows was baptised on 5 June 1878 at St Saviour in Oxton, now a suburb of Birkenhead, and their fourth child, Geoffrey Meadows, was baptised on 27 April 1880 also at St Saviour.
In 1881, the family was living at 18 Devonshire Place in Claughton with Grange, now part of Birkenhead, and Meadows was employed as a Cotton Merchant. They employed four servants including a cook, a domestic, a nurse and an under nurse. Ten years later, they had moved a short distance away to 35 Grosvenor Place and now employed a butler as well as three other domestic servants. Eldest son Meadows was attending the Charterhouse school in Goldaming, Surrey but the rest of their children were still at home.
In 1901, Meadows and Rosalie were living at Hill House in Heswall Cum Oldfield, a small town on the Wirral Peninsula to the west of Birkenhead with a population of 2671 in 1901. Meadows was still working as a Cotton Merchant and both his daughter Rosalie and son Evelyn were living with the family. Evelyn was working as a Mechanical Engineer; he had studied engineering at Liverpool University and completed his apprenticeship at Cammell Laird's Works in Birkenhead.
After completing his studies at Brasenose College, Oxford, their eldest son, Meadows, joined the Colonial Service in 1898 as a cadet. He was posted to Malaysia and by 1901, he had been promoted to Assistant District Officer of Kuala Pilah near Kuala Lumpur. Their youngest son, Geoffrey, was apprenticed to a merchant for three and a half years before he left to enlist in the Cheshire Regiment one month before his twenty-first birthday. One month after enlisting, he sailed for South Africa and served in the Boer War until his return home in May 1902.
By 1911, Meadows and Rosalie had moved to the town of West Kirby located in the north west of the Wirral Penninsula. Sixty-two year old Meadows was still working as a Cotton Merchant and Corn Broker and only their daughter Rosalie was still at home. Son Geoffrey married Dorothy Louisa King at St Bridget in West Kirby on 25 December 1910 and they went on to have three children — Richard Meadows, Sheila and Sydney Evelyn.
Eldest son Meadows remained in the Colonial Service in Malaya and served in a number of positions before returning to England in 1911. He married Catherine Fulton Carver on 18 December 1912; Catherine was the daughter of Thomas Gilbert Carver, a King's Counsel, and Frances Squarey. Meadows and Catherine had three children — Meadows, Mita and John Carver Meadows.
Evelyn moved to Scotland and worked in an engineering works in Clydebank near Glasgow before enlisting as a Second Lieutenant in the Highland Light Infantry in 1907. Four years later, he obtained a position as manager of a rubber pantation in Malaya. When the first world war broke out, he reported for duty in Singapore and served first with the Singapore Command before returning to England to rejoin his regiment. The 5th Battalion was deployed to Gallipoli shortly after; Evelyn arrived on 5 November 1915 and died of wounds suffered in battle on 20 December. He was buried at the Lancashire Landing Cemetery on the Gallipoli peninsula. Of his death, his commanding officer wrote:
His death was a splendidly honourable one. On 19 Dec. he was shot down, we think by fire of a machine gun, while leading his company to the assault of an enemy trench which the regiment had been ordered to capture, and eventually did capture, at terrible cost. I actually saw him fall and then crawl painfully back to where his men were hesitating to cross the fire-swept zone. Though hit in several places, he urged them forward and continued to cheer them on until he fainted through weakness and exhaustion.
His family later erected a brass memorial for Evelyn in the parish church in West Kirby and Meadows also applied to receive the 1914 — 15 Star medal on behalf of his son.
In 1928, their daughter Rosalie died and three years later, Meadows Arnold died at the family home, Stoneyhurst, on The Oatlands in West Kirby on 3 November. He left an estate valued at £4500. His wife, Rosalie, died on 13 April 1937 and she was buried in the church yard at St Bridget's in West Kirby alongside her husband. A memorial to their grandson, Sydney Evelyn Frost, was added to the site following his death in action in France in 1944.
Their son, Meadows, died at his home in Seend, Wiltshire on 28 August 1954 and youngest son, Geoffrey, died on 6 June 1962 in Par, Cornwall.