GREATREX, Alfred Edward
Alfred Edward Greatrex was born at Hillingdon, Middlesex on 4 August 1866, fifth child and only surviving son of Ferdinand Greatrex (c.1832-9 May 1904), a landholder, and his wife Sarah née Nicholson (c.1824-1877), who married at St Giles, London in 1854. In 1871, Alfred was a 4-year-old scholar, living at 34 Hillingdon Road, Hillingdon with his parents, 39-year-old Ferdinand and 46-year-old Sarah, with sibling sisters Florence 16, Mary 12, Ada 9 and Edith 7. The family was wealthy as they were beneficiaries of a trust fund of Mary Nicholson in 1867 and received a substantial inheritance in 1897 from a relation, Mrs Ellen Fowler. On 5 March 1885 Alfred was promoted Lieutenant in the 4th Battalion the Essex Regiment but resigns his commission later that year. Alfred married at Killingworth, Tynemouth, near Newcastle on 17 October 1888, Clara Jane Hancock and in 1891, was a commission agent, living at Woodhurst Road, Acton with his 27 year old wife Clara with a 1 year old daughter Vera Constance Clara and ten years later ‘living on own means’ at Woodhurst, Feathers Hill, Hatfield Broad Oak, Dunmow, Essex with the addition of three more children Ferdinand Hancock (1891-1967), Emilie Mabel (1896-1948) and Alan Horatio (1899-1972), but in 1906 Alfred and Clara had a judicial separation. In 1911, Alfred was a 44-year-old traveller in advertising, lodging at 9 Shearwood Road, Sheffield with a 38-year-old 'wife', Hilda Winifred Wood Hawkins (18 May 1872-1963), a literary writer, born at Winterborne St Martins, Dorset, stating that they had been married for nine years. In 1924, Alfred Edward Greatrex, artist & writer, of Sunrise, Berrynarbor, Barnstable, Devon, paid a final dividend of 40p in the £1 on his debts of £356, in the hands of the official receiver and was again in financial difficulty the following year. A painter in oil and a member of Ipswich Fine Art Club 1925-1945 who exhibited from The Vicarage Studio, Bures St Mary, Sudbury, Suffolk, seven works 1931-1938, most of the exhibits were portraits in oil including, in 1932 'Segni d'Espressione' and 'Study of an Anglo-Catholic Priest' and in 1935, a watercolour 'Peter'. In 1939, a pictorial artist, living at Bures House, Bures, Suffolk with Hilda, a fiction writer. Alfred Edward Greatrex died at Bures in 1956, aged 90.