Frederick John Orchard (1900 - abt. 1995)

Born 10 Dec 1900 in Etchilhampton, Wiltshire, England

Ancestors

Husband of Dorothy Winifred (Fletcher) Orchard — married about 1923 in Raleigh Park Baptist Church, Brixton Hill, London, SW2

Descendants

Died about Mar 1995 at about age 94 in Highfield, The Common, Marlborough, Wiltshire, England

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Biography

Frederick John Orchard died in March 1995 in the retirement home that he had moved with his late wife Dorothy Fletcher several years before. The home was called Highfield House, The Common, Marlborough, Wiltshire.

Frederick was born on 10th December 1900 ^[1] in the small hamlet of Etchilhampton near Devizes in Wiltshire,^[2] this was just a few weeks before the death of Queen Victoria. He was the fourth child and third son of Timothy Orchard and his wife Lucy Pleasance.

He moved with his family in 1904 to the small village of Milton Lilbourne near Pewsey in Wiltshire. They lived in a small cottage opposite the village school where Frederick commenced his education in 1904. ^[3]

The family moved again after the death of Fred's immediately older sibling, Ellen Maud Orchard who had been sent to stay with an aunt and uncle in Brixton Hill in South London and contracted TB. Their new home was a tied cottage associated with the Fosbury Estate in the estate village of Oxenwood in Wiltshire. [N.b. the postal address was Hungerford, Berkshire, but they were situated on the Wilts side of the boundary]

Fred and his siblings then went to Oxenwood school, now used by Wiltshire Council as an outdoor activity centre for their schools across the county. In 1911 he was allowed to join the Fosbury Boy Scout Troop ^[4] although not quite at the age required by their normal rules. He told me of stories of his adventures as a Scout, especially how they learned in 1914 to track Military troop movements as training exercises which involved holding a pen-knife (pocket knife) in his teeth and against a railway line to gauge the distance of an approaching troop train. They lived on the edge of an important military staging and training area.

At the age of seventeen, in 1918, Fred was sent to Brixton to train under his half first cousin (once removed), William Taylor and his wife Rose at 33 Bartley Street, Brixton Hill. William was a painter and decorator.

Sources

1. ↑ GRO death index for Q1 1995
2. ↑ census data for 1901; Civil parish of Etchilhampton, Devizes Rural District, schedule 7
3. ↑ enrolment record at Milton Lilbourne school for Frederick and his two elder brothers, summer 1904
4. ↑ troop photograph in camp 1912 in my possession