St. Mary's Churchyard

Birkenhead Petty Sessions
Monday (Before Messrs. R. Bryans and B. Darbyshire.)
Drunk in a Churchyard.- Peter Fylan, a furniture Broker, was charged with having been drunk and disorderly. Police-constable 1 (Kehoe) said at twenty minutes past six o'clock on Sunday night his attention was directed to the prisoner, who was in St. Mary's Churchyard. Witness, on going into the churchyard, found the prisoner in an almost naked state, lying between the grave stones. The people were going to church at the time, and after they had gone in he took the prisoner to bridewell. - The prisoner said he had been thirty years in Birkenhead, and never did anything in his life except through drink. He promised both of the magistrates and "the gentlemen of the jury" if the case was looked over he would never get drunk again. He hoped their worships would live to see him sober.- He was fined 5shillings and costs.

(reported in the "Cheshire Observer" on Saturday 23rd September 1865).

According to the Census Peter Fylan was born in Ireland in abt 1821, in the 1861 Census he was living at 22 Eldon Street Birkenhead.
There is a Death registration for a Peter Fylan in Birkenhead in the Dec. Qtr. of 1869, but the age given is 61.

Ian Edward Fraser VC

In the Conway Chapel  lie the cremated remains of Ian Edward Fraser VC, DSC, RD and Bar, JP. a submariner who launched a daring attack on a Japanese ship was born the 18th December 1920 in Ealing London the eldest son of Sydney Fraser. He was awarded his VC for action on the 31st July 1945 in the Straits of Johor, Singapore.

 In 1993 he was made an honorary freeman of the Metropolitan Borough of Wirral. He died aged 87 at Arrowe Park Hospital on the Monday 1st September 2008 after a three week illness. He was cremated at Landican Cemetery, Arrowe Park.

Ian Fraser married, in 1943, his childhood sweetheart, Melba Hughes, who was serving as a Wren at Pwllheli on the north Wales coast when they met. They had four sons and two daughters, one of whom predeceased him.