E1.1

William Henry Metters and Helen Mary Metters nee Hands Helen Mary Metters was born Helen Mary Hands on 9 November 1864, the second daughter and fourth child of Thomas Hands and his wife Elizabeth nee Sammons. She was baptised at Westwood on 6 December, where her father was a Canley farmer within the parish of Stoneleigh. In the following three censuses their exact address is not given, but her father's farm was of a considerable size, at over 400 acres. On 25 April 1894 Helen married William Henry Metters at Westwood; both their fathers were described as "Gentlemen". The couple had three children, a boy and two girls, bringing them up at the Manor House farm in Vicarage Road. Helen died on 25 September 1925 at the age of 60. The inscription at the foot of her headstone reads

To live in hearts we leave behind is not to die.

Helen's grandparents Thomas and Sarah Chater Sammons are buried at D 19.1; through her there are links between the Metters family, the Hands, the Sammons, the Phillips and the Rotherhams - all local farming families. William Henry Metters was not originally a Stoneleigh man, though he became well-known as such. He was born on 11 January 1862 in Bickleigh, Devon, the third son of four of farmer Thomas Metters and his wife Mary Ann( buried at E 4. 7) By the time he was 19 he was described as a farm servant - presumably working for his father, as Thomas' farm at Buckland Monachorum was 792 acres in size. By 1891 William had moved to Stoneleigh where he was staying with his brother John and his family at Manor House farm. John later moved to farm at Cross on the Hill Farm near Stratford, and William took over the farm at Stoneleigh. (His brother Thomas farmed at Harbury and his brother Charles in Northamptonshire.) When William died suddenly on 22 September 1929 he had been in Stoneleigh for 37 years. He was described as a prominent Warwickshire agriculturalist, well known for breeding Longhorn cattle, among other livestock. He had represented Stoneleigh on the Warwick Board of Guardians and the Rural District Council and had been a churchwarden. He was buried at Stoneleigh on 25 September, his funeral being attended by a large number of mourners. The inscription beneath his name on the headstone reads "At the going down of the sun and in the morning, we will remember them" - a particularly apt quotation associated with war memorials, since William's only son Henry Hands Metters, who died in November1952, had been awarded the Military Cross for service in the Great War - the only Stoneleigh man to have received this award.