Rectory Lane Cemetery, Berkhamsted

When Frederick Hale was born in 1821 in Holborn, Middlesex, his father, William, was 25 and his mother, Betsy, was 31. Frederick was one of 10 children and his father was a merchant in Hatton Gardens.  By the time he married Eliza Cockayne on 3rd September 1850, Frederick was a draper on the High Street in Berkhamstead.  Eliza was a draper’s assistant in the business.  Sadly, Eliza died in September 1862 when he was 41 years.  They had not had any children. Two years later Frederick married Mary Hammond. Mary was also a draper’s assistant and they went on to have 11 children together. Sadly, their first two children Mary Wimpory Hale and Portia Ann Wimpory Hale both died in 1867.  Their next daughters Stella Maria Wimpory and Elsie Mary Hale also died young in 1869.  Interestingly of these four daughters three had the name Wimpory as either the second or third name – being the maiden name of Frederick’s first wife, Eliza Cockayne’s mother Charlotte.   All four of these infant daughters are buried together in Rectory Lane Cemetery in Plot 252b. In 1870 Mary and Frederick’s son Harold William Harvey Hale was born. They went on to have another six children before Frederick’s death on 14th February 1887 in Hertford, Hertfordshire, at the age of 66.   Frederick was buried in Berkhamsted, Hertfordshire with his first wife Eliza.   After Frederick’s death Mary went back to live in London with their remaining seven children.  Sadly, another child, Lucy Rosa, died in the same year as her father.   Two years later Mary took her and Frederick’s remaining six children to Australia where the family settled.