Cemetery Road, Ipswich, Evening Star

A ton of memories from the Christmas Day baby of 1899

Bill in his 20s

Wife Annie

Bill today with great-grandson George

By Naomi Kilby
From the Evening Star
December 24 1999

WILLIAM Ault has Ipswich running through his veins. In fact, the sprightly centenarian, who was born in Tomline Road, Ipswich, on Christmas Day 1899, has hardly been out of Suffolk for the last century.

Even when he did, it was to work. During the First World War he served with the East Kent Regiment, otherwise known as The Buffs, in Ireland. His time spent in the Emerald Isle is a memory he still holds dear to this day and is one of his favourite stories!

Bill, as everyone calls him, has read The Evening Star for the majority of his life. So did his parents before him in the days when it was called The Star of the East. He has also been an avid Ipswich Town supporter all his life.

He was born the son of Walter and Harriet Ault, who coincidentally were married on Christmas Day, 1891.

Walter, a maltster by trade, was then a foreman at Thomas Mortimers on the quay. He and Harriet had seven children … six boys and a girl.

Growing up in Ipswich, Bill remembers the Ragged School, on Bond Street/Waterworks Street, which was built in 1858 and was the school attended by the poorest children in the area. Bill, however, attended Rosehill School, in Derby Road, and Nacton Road School.

Leaving the confines of the classroom at around 13, he became a carpenter and worked all over the area.

“I worked for different firms, there weren’t any regular jobs then. At one stage I was unemployed for two years,” he recalls.

Bill’s son, Ray, adds that his dad was unemployed during the Great Depression, but Bill worked for many builders around Suffolk.

His grandson, John Ault, now managing director of the building firm Drake & Plant in Felixstowe, even found his grandfather’s name listed in the company’s wages book.

“I was involved in house building on the Ipswich estates at Gainsborough, Castle Hill and several other different sites. I worked with Jack King at Rushmere when I retired at the age of 65 in 1964, then I spent fours years ‘jobbing’. I worked at Shanks the Bakers in Tuddenham,” he said.

Other than the Ragged School, Bill also remembers the dark and dingy Victorian slum of Rope Walk, which he describes as a “horrible place”.

He also remembers the old prison in Grimwade Street. The jail was connected to the old Suffolk assize court also at County Hall, most famous for being the court where Wallis Simpson, known as the Baltimore Belle, stood before Mr Justice Hawke when she got her divorce from her Canadian businessman husband Ernest on October 27, 1936.

She hoped her decree nisi would finally free her to marry King Edward VIII. Little did either of them know these events in an English provincial town were to change the monarchy forever.

And from one love story to another ... Bill met his true love Annie Louise Mann at a dance hall on Ranelagh Road.

It was a match made in heaven and the two were married on August 1, 1926, the year of the General Strike, when Bill found himself unemployed.

Nevertheless, Annie moved into number 13 Finchley Road, where the couple lived for 67 years.

“The wages at that time were terrible, we were buying a house on that, our house was valued at Ł375 at that time,” recalls Bill.

Bill had joined the Army when he turned 18 on Christmas Day, 1917. “I went to Bury St Edmunds to be fitted up, then I went to Crowborough, near Tunbridge Wells for my training,” he explained. “And then I was sent to Ireland, to a place called Gort, six miles from Galway.”

He served in Ireland during the time the president of Sinn Fein, Eamon de Valera, was the Irish Prime Minister. “I was only there for a short spell, it wouldn’t have been much longer than 12 months.”

When he returned he took up carpentry again and he used to travel all over the place on his bike to get work.

Before his wife got married Annie worked at Philip and Pipers in Old Foundry Road, making clothes. When the couple wed she gave up work altogether.

During the Second World War Bill recalls being sent to Ransomes in Fore Hamlet, near the bottom of Cavendish Street, which he remembers was called White City, because everything in the vicinity was painted white.

“I went down there to help build aircraft during the Second World War. I worked there until the very end of the war,” said Bill.

On September 21, 1940, a mine which dropped on Cemetery Road also destroyed part of Finchley Road, where Bill and Annie’s house was.

“We had a lot of damage, but we were lucky, our house wasn’t destroyed.”

The couple had two children, a son Ray, who has two children, Karen (now Lincoln) and John, and a daughter Jean, now Mrs Keer, who lives at Glemsford.

After the mine was dropped the children were evacuated to Loughborough, where they stayed for a few months before returning to Ipswich.

Ray, who now lives in Larchcroft Road, Ipswich, attended Northgate Grammar School and Jean went to Christchurch School. But as to family holidays, they were few and far between.

“You were lucky to get to Felixstowe once a year on holiday. We never used to go anywhere, we never had enough money!”

Bill now has three great grandchildren – Edward, five, Henry, two and five-month-old George – and there’s another on the way.

For entertainment Bill and Annie used to go dancing and would often visit the California Club, on Foxhall Road. Sadly, Annie passed away six years ago.

Bill has supported Ipswich Town all his life and has followed their fortunes through highs and lows. He still takes great pleasure in listening to their matches on the radio.

“I remember paying just a few pennies to watch them play. I haven’t been for years. I remember Portman Road before it had a stand and we just used to stand on the pitch side watching them play. I still like to know how they get on and listen to the matches on the radio.”

And Bill loves to sing, especially Danny Boy, and that’s sure to be a tune he’ll sing when all his family join him at his party tomorrow at the residential home where he lives in Cliff Lane.

Loving tributes to an ever-cheerful centenarian

By Naomi Kilby
From the Evening Star
March 3 2000

LOVING tributes to a man who was always “happy and cheerful” have today been paid to the Ipswich centenarian who lived in three centuries.

William Ault, who featured on the front page of The Evening Star’s special Christmas Eve edition as he prepared to celebrate his birthday on Christmas Day, died suddenly, but peacefully, at Ipswich Hospital on Saturday.

Mr Ault’s family believe his aim was to live to see his 100th birthday and say their treasured memories of him include those of his party at Cliff Lane Residential Home.

Bill, as he was fondly known, had Ipswich running through his veins. Throughout his 100 years, he hardly ventured outside of Suffolk and had been an Ipswich Town supporter and Evening Star reader all his life.

He had many memories of Ipswich over the last century. These included the old Ragged School on Bond Street/Waterworks Street and the jail attached to the old Suffolk court at County Hall, where Wallis Simpson got her divorce so she could marry Edward VIII.

“To be truthful, I think he geared himself up to have his 100th and made sure he was well for that. “He’d gone down a little bit ever since,” said son Ray, who lives with his wife, Jean, in Larchcroft Road, Ipswich.

Mr Ault said his father had a fall about two weeks ago but died from heart failure. “I think his heart had just worn out. It was over 100 years old. He had a very good innings, but I shall miss him because he had been around such a long time,” said Mr Ault.

Daughter Jean Keer, who lives at Glemsford with her husband Brian, said: “We all remember him singing and being happy and content. It all seems so sudden. I think he lived for his 100th. When you live to be 100, that’s marvellous. He had his dream come true.

A family gathering for Bill's 100th “He had a wonderful party on the day and his whole family was there.”

Grandson, 36-year-old John Ault, managing director of Drake & Plant, in Felixstowe, said he and his wife Sarah would remember his grandfather as always being happy and cheerful. “He was always very caring and doted on his family.”

Grandaughter Karen Lincoln said: “Obviously, he has always been the mainstay of the family because he has been around such a long time, which makes it more of a shock that he has died.

“We used to go and visit him quite regularly. I know my two sons Edward and Henry enjoyed visiting him at Cliff Lane. We have obviously got very happy memories of him and grandma.”

Mr Ault senior was husband to the late Annie Louise, father to Raymond and Jean, father-in-law to Jean and Brian, grandad to Karen, John, Julie and Catherine and a great granddad to Edward, Henry, George and Poppy.

The funeral service is to be held at Old Cemetery Church, Ipswich on Wednesday, March 8, at 2.30pm, followed by interment in the Lawns Cemetery, Ipswich. Floral tributes maybe sent to Co-operative Chapel of Rest, Cauldwell Hall Road, Ipswich.