No worries Arthur - hope it's useful! By the way, if you wanted to take a punt on his birth being in Malta, you could always apply for a birth certificate from this site:
Have just had a peep at the Bradnich webspage, there's a photo of the Queen visiting Bradnich Manor in 1949. It was a school at the time- photo is in the Express and Echo archives. Don't know if that helps.
Barb
Have just had a peep at the Bradnich webspage, there's a photo of the Queen visiting Bradnich Manor in 1949. It was a school at the time- photo is in the Express and Echo archives. Don't know if that helps.
Barb
Are we talking about our current queen, who at that time was Princess Elizabeth, wife of a naval officer, or are we talking of her mother, Elizabeth, consort of George VI, also a naval man?
Jay
JanetinYorkshire
Genealogists never die - they just swap places in the family tree
Regarding the posts above about Bradninch Manor House. I have found out that as you said the Manor House was used as a Boarding School for young children in the late 1940's. It was also used to house evacuees from London during WW2. As J*** B****** Dolphin was listed as 13 years old when emigrating to Gibraltar, it is fair to assume that he was at the School. Particularly as his father was serving in the Royal Navy, and his mother had died. Who would have chosen that School, I have no idea.
Don't know if this is any help. Ken told me that William E J Dolphin, when his wife died he left his son with his in-laws and went to Singapore dockyards as Bosun of the Yard. All his effects stored in London were destroyed in the Blitz. When the Japanese took Singapore, he escaped, probably to Australia, it isn't known where he was during the war. After the war he spent some time as Bosun at Gibraltar and never contacted his sister Gladys (died 1985) who was very fond of him.
I knew about him being Bosun at Gibraltar after the war. I didn't know about the Singapore episode though. If he went to Australia, that would make sense because of relations there. Gladys was my mother, and she was always trying to find out what happened to him, but she died never knowing. It wasn't only Gladys that he never contacted, for some reason he gave up on the whole family. None of us ever knew that he returned to England, where he died in Surrey.
Being sent to live with in laws when his mother died, would certainly make sense. All of the rest of the family was fragmented during the war. With the majority of the menfolk in the Royal Navy, they were away from home for very long periods. I never really remember seeing my father until after the war, by which time I was 9 years old.
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