Rectory Lane Cemetery, Berkhamsted

Frederick Richard Bingham

01/12/1872

Post Office clerk and telegraphist

• Melanie Hilton

Frederick Richard Bingham (1872-1946)

Frederick was born 1st December 1872 in Kent, the son of Richard Stephen Bingham, a mariner, and mother Sarah Ann (née Ratcliff). He was baptised 12^th January 1873 at St John the Evangelist, Kingsdown-Next-Deal.

He married Alice Jane Parren on 8th September 1898 in Canterbury. Frederick was a sorting clerk and telegraphist and Alice’s father was a sub-postmaster, which may have been how they met.

From at least 1900 the couple were living at 54, Hanover Place, Canterbury in a six-roomed house with their son Frederick Alfred (b.1900). Frederick was a post office sorting clerk and telegraphist. They were at the same address in 1911 and their family had grown to include Marguerita Alice (b.1903), Mildred Mary (b.1910) and Alan John (b.1910). Frederick was a post office clerk.

By 1921 Frederick was a sub-postmaster and he and Alice lived at the Post Office, The Square, Birchington-on-Sea, a village about four miles west of Margate. Frederick jnr. was employed as an engine cleaner with the South Eastern and Chatham Railway company at their works in Margate and Margaret, aged 19, was a telephonist.

In the 1939 Register Frederick, aged 67, was living at 1, Montague Road, Berkhamsted and employed as post office sorting clerk and telegraphist again. The household was large. In addition to Frederick there was Ethel H Deadfield. Originally she was entered as Bingham but the surname was amended which is usually an indication that she married after the first registration. What her relationship to Frederick was has not been established. There is no record for Alice and Frederick is shown as married. It has not been possible to establish whether Alice had passed away by this date.

There was also a widow, Annie Smith; a stationery dealer Basil G Leatherdale, married but with no wife listed; Annie E Ricketts, a spinster working as a clerk at the employment exchange and William and Gertrude Robertson and their three children. What the relationship was between these diverse individuals is unclear.

Frederick died in the second quarter of 1946 aged 74.