Researching Alfred Williams

Williams was born in Cambria Cottage in the village of South Marston, the son of a carpenter, and grew up in poverty after his father abandoned his wife and eight children. He became a farm labourer at eleven, and then, when he was fourteen, he entered Swindon Railway Works, where he worked as a steamhammer operator for the next twenty-three years.

Married in 1903, he pursued a demanding schedule of full-time work and private study. He published his first of book of poems, Songs in Wiltshire, in 1909, but his health declined and he left the factory in 1914.

Williams published six volumes of poetry and a series of prose books about his home villages and others nearby, but died in poverty in 1930 in South Marston. Life in a Railway Factory has been described as “undisputed as the most important literary work ever produced in Swindon, about Swindon.”

Williams was born at Ashford in Kent in 1844, the son of John and Catherine Williams. His father was a wine merchant and Williams followed him into the profession. He is first recorded as having played cricket for a Kent professional Colts side in 1863 and, despite making little impression in Colts cricket, played in three First XI matches for the county side in 1865. On his debut, against Sussex at Gravesend he scored 13 not out and took three wickets. These were his best figures for the side. His other matches came during the same season, both played against Yorkshire.

It is possible that Williams played for the Gentlemen of Kent amateur side in 1867, although as a professional colt this is considered doubtful. At the 1871 census he was living in Ashford but was unemployed. There is no record of him after this, although CricInfo's database records his death occurred in January 1914 at Lyminge in Kent aged 69. This is no recorded in other sources and it is possible he may have emigrated.