A recent article on the website about The Wheatsheaf Darts Team of 1949 has prompted Terry Sparrow to write to us to correct a misunderstanding. Thomas Henry Marshall (1898-1979), always known as Harry, was never the landlord of The Wheatsheaf, although his father, also Thomas, certainly was. Terry provides us with more details about the Marshall family.
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Thomas Marshall Senior was born at Dorsington, Warwickshire, in 1865. On 26th December 1885 he married Fanny Addis (born at Badsey on 24th October 1866) at Badsey Church, at which time he was described as a market gardener. At some point during the period between the 1891 and 1901 census dates, he became tenant at The Wheatsheaf, quite likely when the previous owner/occupier, Fanny Wright, sold the premises to Flowers Brewery of Stratford-on-Avon on 1st January 1896. Tom Marshall remained at the pub until his death on 27th October 1935, after which the tenancy was taken over by his widow, Fanny (see the 1939 register and 1939 Electoral Roll). The register also tells us that Constance K Wixey, a general help, was living at The Wheatsheaf at the time. Mrs Marshall died on 10th June 1944. Connie Wixey then became the licensee and I remember her when I first went to The Wheatsheaf as a customer during the 1950s.
On 30th July 1956, at Badsey Church, Connie married Thomas Henry (Harry) Marshall, described as a licensed victualler, resident at Bretforton (he was landlord of The Victoria Arms, closed some years ago). He was a widower, his wife, Edith, having died 15 months earlier.
Following their marriage, Harry and Connie soon gave up their respective public houses (I am not able to trace the actual dates) and in August 1957 the Parish Review welcomed them as the new proprietors of Badsey Post Office (then at 28 High Street).
I cannot remember how long they remained at the Post Office, although it was probably almost ten years, after which they retired to Roughlyn, Gold Lane, Wickhamford, where they were still living at the time of Harry’s death in February 1979. In due course, Connie sold the house to Mr & Mrs E Simms. She then moved to a bungalow in Wickhamford (which was probably the address on the back of the darts team photograph) but, at the time of her death in 1994, was back in Badsey at Seward House Nursing Home.
Terry Sparrow, August 2025