WATT Gerald Norval Allan -1918
Walking through the rows I encountered a row of children’s half plot graves. One of the slabs was engraved “Pookety”. I grabbed my pic and headed elsewhere, intending to see whether I could shed any light on who Pookety was.
Unfortunately the grave has had the metal work cut away and the upper part of the gravestone is missing, so the only real way to identify the grave is by the grave number and the register (assuming that the graves around it are numbered consecutively).
On my next visit to Burgershoop on 17 September 2012 I catalogued the graves around Pookety until I was able to match identifiable graves in the row with the register and that gave me the grave number that I needed. I am about 98% sure that the grave is that of Gerald Norval Allan Watt, aged 6 months, buried in grave J1546, on 17 January 1918.
According to the register the graves above are: (left to right, includes unmarked grave on the left)
Stillborn child of HA Price, grave J1548, buried 19/01/1918. (unmarked grave)
Gerald Norval Allan Watt (Pookety), grave J1546, buried 17/01/1918
Elizabeth Dewar Wilson, grave J1544, buried 12/01/1918
Moxon Stow Nash, grave J1541 2 days old, buried 08/01/1918
Possibly Thomas WC Laughton, grave J1535, 30 years old, buried 22/12/1917
I was able to find Gerald’s baptismal certificate and that occurred at St George’s in Parktown, and his parents were listed as Norval James Watt, a “medical practitioner” and Agnes Dorothy Ashburnam Watt. He was born on 5 July 1917, and baptised on 16 September 1917. The death notice states his cause of death as “Acidosis”.
And so Pookety was identified, but I am not 100% convinced that the last grave on the right hand side is correctly identified as it is a half plot so not an adult’s grave. It is in the nature of grave hunting that we will always end up with more questions than answers. I have partly answered one, but now have a new one.
DRW © 2012-2023. Created 18/03/2023. Originally a part of another post.
contributed by: Megan Visser & Chloe Williams
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