Members of the Essex Yeomanry pictured in France shortly after their mobilisation. Some of these men may 
have been billeted at Foxborough Hall Farm.
Charles Ishmael Pratt married Mary Jane Capon, the sister of Ernest Capon of Ash House, Melton Hill, in 1883. The couple began married life at Decoy Farm that they rented from Francis Capper Brook of Ufford Place. They had seven children, four sons and three daughters. By 1911, they had moved to Foxborough Farm, having taken over the running of the farm when Lucy, Charles’ mother, died in 1906. Three of their sons, Victor, Philip and Ernest, served in the First World War.
In the early days of the war, the farm provided billets for eighty men from the Essex Yeomanry. As a token of thanks, Charles and Mary were presented with a silver salver “from the troopers in appreciation of the great kindness shown to them.” Arthur Cecil, their other son, became a butcher and, in 1916, he married Gertrude Foreman, who was working as a nurse at St Audry’s Hospital. They had a daughter, Judith Mary, in 1918. By 1939, the family had moved away to Wickford, Billericay, Essex. They all died in October 1940, when a bomb hit their house and so became civilian casualties of the Second World War.