Randle Gent
Randle Gent was born at 8.30am on Monday, 29th April, 1901, at 117, Claremont Road, Moss Side, Manchester, the second son and fourth child of Frank Turner Gent and Florence Barrington. He was named after his father's cousin, Randle Gent of Liverpool. When he left school he became a stained glass maker's apprentice. His mother died on 2nd April, 1913, only two years before his own death on Saturday, 30th October, 1915.
Randle was killed by a motor car in Cross Street, opposite the end of Tib Lane, at 11.50pm on Saturday, October 30th, 1915. The streets were in darkness owing to the war. The taxi was going at 12 miles an hour with two officers to Victoria Station for Southport, and a wooden hoarding was built on the footpath just at this spot owing to some rebuilding, leaving only 2 feet of footpath for pedestrians. he must have stepped off the path owing to its narrowness, and the taxi swerved into the footpath to escape a tram car going to Albert Square on the single line just at that spot. Randle was taken to the Infirmary in the taxi with a fractured skull and other injuries - the police report says left arm and right leg - and died at 2.00am on Saturday night. He had nothing on him to show his identity, so we could not be sent for to see him alive. We thought he had stayed all night at Seedley and they thought he had got safe home. When Dora went the next day, Sunday, to Seedley and said he had not got home they made enquiries and found a boy was lying at the Infirmary. I was telephoned for to go and identify at the Infirmary and face the grief and cruel loss.
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| Jackson's Boat, Manchester. From memory. |
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| based on a pen sketch by William Dinnage, a relation of his father in Dorking. |
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| Rushton Church, where his relations the Turners were incumbents. |
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