Report - Thickets House/The Agius Story, Oxford May 2019/Sept 2022

[oralb52]

Just lost over half an hour to this absolutely intriguing report. What a fascinating piece of history, wonderfully researched and documented. Bravo!

 

[Witt]

Amazing report mate! and really impressive delve into the past with all the historical information!!

 

[Camera Shy]

So what happened to all the war paperwork then, hope you saved it!

 

[Jessilf]

What a beautifully heartbreaking find! World War One history is a strong passion of mine and I would have been over joyed to have been able to look through all the documents that were left. Amazing report! Thank you so much for sharing, really enjoyed reading this. (Even if it did make me a little sad that these items had been left to decay… hopefully they’re somewhere where they can help educate others now!)

 

[mookster]

Thanks all for your kind words, I don't think I'll ever find somewhere like this again and it really deserved a proper write up to do it justice - the wider world needs to know about families like these.

 

[Oxygen Thief]

That was an incredible write up! I hope the paperwork was saved?

 

[Peter Agius]

Thank you for this thread and all the comments about my amazing family and especially my 5 g-uncles in WW1. I need to have a think about this (quite emotional just now) and will comment more fully in due course. My namesake, Peter Agius, was my Dad's 1st cousin and I visited Thickets many times 1971-2005.

 

[mookster]

Thank you for this thread and all the comments about my amazing family and especially my 5 g-uncles in WW1. I need to have a think about this (quite emotional just now) and will comment more fully in due course. My namesake, Peter Agius, was my Dad's 1st cousin and I visited Thickets many times 1971-2005.

That's amazing, as soon as I saw your name 'like' my posts on here I was pretty thrilled - can I ask out of interest how you found this post?

 

[Derpy_hooves]

Bravo!
I really hope the documents were saved.

 

[Peter Agius]

How did I find your post? Pure coincidence in that I was searching for something else and stumbled across your page and was amazed to see it was hot off the press. There’s always been much confusion between the two monks named Dom Ambrose Agius – first one ended up as Archbishop Agius in Manila, and his nephew, the 2nd Ambrose, was a chaplain on the front line, as you have shown. So being the (London) Agius family archivist and mindful of how the family is being presented on the internet, I googled ‘Ambrose Agius’ to see what pops up and decided to go down several pages to see if there was anything new. On page 6 of the search results I found the reference to Thickets which I immediately recognised as the home of cousin Peter and family, which I had visited many times starting with when I was at Oxford early 70s and would pop out to see the cousins at Hinksey.

Of course, I immediately recognised that your bios of the uncles, text and photos, was pretty much lifted from my family website, which I haven’t got a problem with since I’ve put it all in the public domain, but perhaps you will allow me to direct your readers to the original pages on About – AGIUS WORLD WAR ONE and then go to ‘brothers and others’ to find more detail. In particular, WW1 enthusiasts will be interested in the almost daily letters home from Arthur to Dollie 1914-1916 that we blogged daily 100 years to the day during the WW1 centenary (mainly for the benefit of a huge number of cousins in England and Malta). Arthur left an amazing archive of letters, documents and maps some of which has been passed to me but the rest makes up a significant resource held by the IWM. He is also referenced widely in Lyn MacDonald’s WW1 books (‘Somme’, ‘Death of Innocence’ etc) . The icing on the cake was that he was mentioned by name at the Somme Centenary Memorial Service at Thiepval 1st July 2016. You say ‘not much is known about Arthur’ after WW1 but in actual fact he was a successful solicitor and favourite uncle to a huge number of nephews and nieces in 3 generations.

I started our family website in 2013 primarily to tell the WW1 story of the 5 brothers and after 3+ years of daily blogs we had a grand family gathering October 2017 to mark the centenary of Uncle Richard being killed at Poelcapelle . 100+ DNA related cousins in 4 generations aged 1 to 82 meeting in Somerset! Centenary Celebration – AGIUS WORLD WAR ONE To finish off the Edgar WW1 story I met with Martin in 2016 and he passed a significant archive of maps, notebooks etc to me to and that helped me to round off Edgar’s story in suitable fashion. So finally, we come to your page and you will now understand my feelings in discovering this earlier today. Sad to see the state of the house but all such things finally have their day. More distressing to see the bits of WW1 archive that got left behind (but thankful that the major part is safely with me). If the things that you show in your photos have now been lost then I’m thankful that you managed to record them for posterity. Especially the St Denis ID card, the Ed T Agius headed letter sent to J C Agius, my grandfather, the Royal Sussex Regiment document. Particulary sad about the Army Book with the reference to Dick on the front. I have Edgar’s other Army Books and can’t think how this one got separated.

Enough said. I just wanted to make it clear to your readers these men were dearly loved and are still honoured in the family, which may not have been clear from just seeing these sad remains at Thickets.

Just some minor corrections to your added text, if I may. Alfred was Malta Trade Commissioner from 1934 but was in an office in London (that was blitzed in WW2) . All the boys stayed in London for the rest of their lives (apart from Dom Ambrose) and it was just the sisters who married Maltese and emigrated back to Malta. Marcus is one of 6 children of Alfred …. 5 still living. And of the children of Peter …Clare is the owner of Potterton Books in Yorkshire Potterton Books - International specialists in rare and unusual out of print books and not one of ‘Malta's most famous top TV presenters’ . (Not sure who you’re thinking of there!)

 

[mookster]

How did I find your post? Pure coincidence in that I was searching for something else and stumbled across your page and was amazed to see it was hot off the press. There’s always been much confusion between the two monks named Dom Ambrose Agius – first one ended up as Archbishop Agius in Manila, and his nephew, the 2nd Ambrose, was a chaplain on the front line, as you have shown. So being the (London) Agius family archivist and mindful of how the family is being presented on the internet, I googled ‘Ambrose Agius’ to see what pops up and decided to go down several pages to see if there was anything new. On page 6 of the search results I found the reference to Thickets which I immediately recognised as the home of cousin Peter and family, which I had visited many times starting with when I was at Oxford early 70s and would pop out to see the cousins at Hinksey.

Of course, I immediately recognised that your bios of the uncles, text and photos, was pretty much lifted from my family website, which I haven’t got a problem with since I’ve put it all in the public domain, but perhaps you will allow me to direct your readers to the original pages on About – AGIUS WORLD WAR ONE and then go to ‘brothers and others’ to find more detail. In particular, WW1 enthusiasts will be interested in the almost daily letters home from Arthur to Dollie 1914-1916 that we blogged daily 100 years to the day during the WW1 centenary (mainly for the benefit of a huge number of cousins in England and Malta). Arthur left an amazing archive of letters, documents and maps some of which has been passed to me but the rest makes up a significant resource held by the IWM. He is also referenced widely in Lyn MacDonald’s WW1 books (‘Somme’, ‘Death of Innocence’ etc) . The icing on the cake was that he was mentioned by name at the Somme Centenary Memorial Service at Thiepval 1st July 2016. You say ‘not much is known about Arthur’ after WW1 but in actual fact he was a successful solicitor and favourite uncle to a huge number of nephews and nieces in 3 generations.

I started our family website in 2013 primarily to tell the WW1 story of the 5 brothers and after 3+ years of daily blogs we had a grand family gathering October 2017 to mark the centenary of Uncle Richard being killed at Poelcapelle . 100+ DNA related cousins in 4 generations aged 1 to 82 meeting in Somerset! Centenary Celebration – AGIUS WORLD WAR ONE To finish off the Edgar WW1 story I met with Martin in 2016 and he passed a significant archive of maps, notebooks etc to me to and that helped me to round off Edgar’s story in suitable fashion. So finally, we come to your page and you will now understand my feelings in discovering this earlier today. Sad to see the state of the house but all such things finally have their day. More distressing to see the bits of WW1 archive that got left behind (but thankful that the major part is safely with me). If the things that you show in your photos have now been lost then I’m thankful that you managed to record them for posterity. Especially the St Denis ID card, the Ed T Agius headed letter sent to J C Agius, my grandfather, the Royal Sussex Regiment document. Particulary sad about the Army Book with the reference to Dick on the front. I have Edgar’s other Army Books and can’t think how this one got separated.

Enough said. I just wanted to make it clear to your readers these men were dearly loved and are still honoured in the family, which may not have been clear from just seeing these sad remains at Thickets.

Just some minor corrections to your added text, if I may. Alfred was Malta Trade Commissioner from 1934 but was in an office in London (that was blitzed in WW2) . All the boys stayed in London for the rest of their lives (apart from Dom Ambrose) and it was just the sisters who married Maltese and emigrated back to Malta. Marcus is one of 6 children of Alfred …. 5 still living. And of the children of Peter …Clare is the owner of Potterton Books in Yorkshire Potterton Books - International specialists in rare and unusual out of print books and not one of ‘Malta's most famous top TV presenters’ . (Not sure who you’re thinking of there!)

Honestly I can't thank you enough for coming on here and adding more information, and giving us an insight into it from your own family's perspective. I'm sure it felt very odd seeing things and people you have a personal connection with shown on a website like this but I really hope I was able to do the story and the family justice - a huge thanks too for creating that website which I would have used much more of, however this thread would probably have taken me a week to write and compile if I'd used everything I wanted to.

You have an incredible family history and should rightfully feel proud preserving it for the future.

Re. the TV presenter thing - back in 2019 when I was initially researching the family, I found a website which listed a person - apparently her - as a Maltese TV personality - however there is a good chance I managed to get my wires crossed back then as I was completely unable to find that website again when creating the thread here last month.

 

[Giymo85]

How did I find your post? Pure coincidence in that I was searching for something else and stumbled across your page and was amazed to see it was hot off the press. There’s always been much confusion between the two monks named Dom Ambrose Agius – first one ended up as Archbishop Agius in Manila, and his nephew, the 2nd Ambrose, was a chaplain on the front line, as you have shown. So being the (London) Agius family archivist and mindful of how the family is being presented on the internet, I googled ‘Ambrose Agius’ to see what pops up and decided to go down several pages to see if there was anything new. On page 6 of the search results I found the reference to Thickets which I immediately recognised as the home of cousin Peter and family, which I had visited many times starting with when I was at Oxford early 70s and would pop out to see the cousins at Hinksey.

Of course, I immediately recognised that your bios of the uncles, text and photos, was pretty much lifted from my family website, which I haven’t got a problem with since I’ve put it all in the public domain, but perhaps you will allow me to direct your readers to the original pages on About – AGIUS WORLD WAR ONE and then go to ‘brothers and others’ to find more detail. In particular, WW1 enthusiasts will be interested in the almost daily letters home from Arthur to Dollie 1914-1916 that we blogged daily 100 years to the day during the WW1 centenary (mainly for the benefit of a huge number of cousins in England and Malta). Arthur left an amazing archive of letters, documents and maps some of which has been passed to me but the rest makes up a significant resource held by the IWM. He is also referenced widely in Lyn MacDonald’s WW1 books (‘Somme’, ‘Death of Innocence’ etc) . The icing on the cake was that he was mentioned by name at the Somme Centenary Memorial Service at Thiepval 1st July 2016. You say ‘not much is known about Arthur’ after WW1 but in actual fact he was a successful solicitor and favourite uncle to a huge number of nephews and nieces in 3 generations.

I started our family website in 2013 primarily to tell the WW1 story of the 5 brothers and after 3+ years of daily blogs we had a grand family gathering October 2017 to mark the centenary of Uncle Richard being killed at Poelcapelle . 100+ DNA related cousins in 4 generations aged 1 to 82 meeting in Somerset! Centenary Celebration – AGIUS WORLD WAR ONE To finish off the Edgar WW1 story I met with Martin in 2016 and he passed a significant archive of maps, notebooks etc to me to and that helped me to round off Edgar’s story in suitable fashion. So finally, we come to your page and you will now understand my feelings in discovering this earlier today. Sad to see the state of the house but all such things finally have their day. More distressing to see the bits of WW1 archive that got left behind (but thankful that the major part is safely with me). If the things that you show in your photos have now been lost then I’m thankful that you managed to record them for posterity. Especially the St Denis ID card, the Ed T Agius headed letter sent to J C Agius, my grandfather, the Royal Sussex Regiment document. Particulary sad about the Army Book with the reference to Dick on the front. I have Edgar’s other Army Books and can’t think how this one got separated.

Enough said. I just wanted to make it clear to your readers these men were dearly loved and are still honoured in the family, which may not have been clear from just seeing these sad remains at Thickets.

Just some minor corrections to your added text, if I may. Alfred was Malta Trade Commissioner from 1934 but was in an office in London (that was blitzed in WW2) . All the boys stayed in London for the rest of their lives (apart from Dom Ambrose) and it was just the sisters who married Maltese and emigrated back to Malta. Marcus is one of 6 children of Alfred …. 5 still living. And of the children of Peter …Clare is the owner of Potterton Books in Yorkshire Potterton Books - International specialists in rare and unusual out of print books and not one of ‘Malta's most famous top TV presenters’ . (Not sure who you’re thinking of there!)

On a site stuffed with some pretty astonishing content, this has to be one of the best things I have had the fortune of reading.

Glad that you found this post and equally so that @mookster put together such an interesting and detailed report.

 

[wormster]

Wipes jaw off the floor!!

Stunning stuff and only spitting distance from where I went to school, often used to cycle past on our way to the boathouse by the pub! Happy memories

 

[PureFilth]

This is a wonderful report and place @mookster , and you've covered the history so thoughtfully. It really is outstanding.

Incredible to also read first hand from a direct descendent @Peter Agius which brings even more life and reality to a location and family with such deep and poignant history.

What a pleasure this as been to read. As an aside, I desperately hope the documents and papers have been able to make their way back to the family where they belong.

 

[Peter Agius]

Had a great dialogue with Mookster and we look forward to a happy ending to this story!