Tony Woodcock and his mother Ruby
As the family tree on the George Ward page shows, Tony Woodcock was the son of John and Ruby Woodcock who were married in London in 1923. Ruby was related to George Ward, the well-known Amersham photographer. Ruby set up Woodcocks, a successful ladies’ dress and haberdashery shop in Sycamore Road.
Anthony was an only child and did not marry and lived with his mother in Woodside Close. He was a very private man and little is known about him, other than his great love of music and photography. He graduated from Hertford College, Oxford and worked in London as a patent agent. (If anyone reading this can add more detail, please do contact us to let us know). He was a member of the Amersham Society and was one of the Founder Friends of Amersham Museum. When he died he had no living relations so very generously left all his money to five charities and the largest legacy was to the Museum, for which we are enormously grateful as it allowed us to employ a professional Curator.
He was a keen photographer and two of his photographs taken at Amersham Station are shown here.
His father John was born in 1894 in Hampstead. John’s father was a Draper and John was “assisting his father’s business” in 1911 at which time they were living at “The Sycamores”, Chesham Bois, having moved from Willesden. He served in the 12th London Regt in WW1, and died in 1949.
His mother Ruby was born in 1902 in Amersham and died in High Wycombe in 1994. In 1911 she was living with her grandfather George Ward, a carpenter at a Weller’s brewery, and her widowed mother Rosa (who was acting as housekeeper to George) in The Broadway, Old Amersham. George Ward the carpenter was the father of George Ward the photographer. Ruby’s father was Frank, also an Amersham native, who worked as a Journeyman Carpenter and died young, just before Ruby’s birth.
Anthony’s uncle Cecil William Napier Woodcock was killed in WW1; he is buried in France and commemorated on the Chesham Bois war memorial and the Scouts Roll of Honour. Read about his Death Penny which is in Amersham Museum.