My walking journals and ancestry research
After school Donald joined the Cape Mounted Rifles and emigrated to South Africa. After resigning that commission and returning to England, he joined the Norfolk Regiment and returned to South Africa to fight in the 2nd Boer War. He was twice Mentioned in Despatches. The first time in September 1901 by Field Marshal Frederick Roberts and then in December 1902 by Field Marshal Lord Herbert Kitchener.
After a spell as Inspector of Native Affairs, he joined the Transvaal Scottish Regiment.
Born October 5th, 1887 at Sedgeford Hall. When the family moved to Folkestone, Helen attended Effingham School there.
She later travelled in Italy and Germany with Miss Buckhurst, her governess. Returning to Heighington, Lincolnshire, she ran a scout group and during the First World War she was a driver with the Royal Flying Corps.
Helen married Alfred Churchill Matthew of Colombo in 1921 and spent time in Ceylon. The couple moved back to Norfolk and then settled in Hampshire where they brought up three children. She died on April 5th, 1957 in Winchester.
Born August 4th 1885 at Sedgeford Hall. It was clear from a young age that Frank would go into the church and he spent a spell as a schoolmaster in order to finance his theological studies at Oriel College, Oxford.
Frank was ordained in 1911 and worked as a curate in Brighton before joining the staff of Bishop’s College, Cheshunt. His next post was as curate at St. George’s Toddington between 1921 and 1924. In 1926 he was appointed Rector of Toddington, Bedfordshire where he remained till his death.
Frank was the keeper of his mother’s photograph collection. He died on May 24th, 1951.
Born March 17th, 1884 at Sedgeford Hall. Nona was educated at home with her sisters.
In 1908 she married Thomas Woods Purdy, a close friend of her brothers from their Haileybury days. They spent all their married lives in Aylsham and had four children.
She was known as an excellent horsewoman and correspondence from her youth reveals a vivacious personality.
She died on July 19th, 1958 in Aylsham.
Born January 31st 1882 at Sedgeford Hall. She was educated at home with her younger sisters and lived in the various family homes after the Hunts moved from Norfolk.
During the First World War she travelled to her job in a metalwork factory by motorcycle. She returned to Felmingham, Norfolk with her mother and after her death moved to a bungalow in Aylsham.
Gertie had an acute social conscience and supported many charities. She took on her mother’s role as family recorder in later diaries and photograph albums.
Gertie died on February 27th, 1977 in Aylsham.
Born August 21st, 1880 at Sedgeford Hall. He attended Haileybury and was with the London and Westminster Bank before taking an administrative post in the tea and rubber plantations of Ceylon.
During the Great War he served at Gallipoli and was said to have been the last soldier evacuated in the withdrawal. He married Helen Bullock in 1914 and they had two sons.
Gerald remained a regular visitor to Norfolk.
He died in Woking on July 9th, 1939.
Born January 28th, 1877 in Kensington. On 22nd of June the same year the entry in Alice’s birthday book records “Our baby died (my little girl)”
Born 30th December, 1878, in Kensington. John was awarded scholarships at Haileybury before going on to specialise in chemistry.
Much of his work was concerned with researching tanning methods. His work led to a life overseas, in Zupanje, Hungary for ten years with the Oak Extract Company Ltd., a brief spell in Borneo and then a long association with Smyrna, now in Turkey.
During the Kemalist attack and sack of Smyrna on September 9th, 1922, he was said to have evacuated the Greek element of his factory before departing under the cover of darkness in a boat with muffled oars.
He retired to Izmir where he died on April 8th, 1931.
Born May 2nd, 1875 in Kensington. At Haileybury he was a keen sportsman and notable long-distance runner. Donald spent a few months as a school-master before joining the Cape Mounted Rifles in 1896.
He served in the Boer War with the 3rd Norfolk Regiment where he was mentioned in Kitchener’s despatches and then with the Native Administration Department in Sekukuniland, including a period as Inspector of Mines.
He joined the Transvaal Scottish Regiment at the start of the Great War and took part in the German South West Africa campaign. When the South African government was requested to send a brigade for action at the Western Front, he joined the 4th Battalion (South African Scottish) of the South African Infantry Brigade and served with them from 1915 to 1918. The South African Infantry Brigade’s first action was the famous Battle of Delville Wood on the Somme. Subsequently the brigade served at Arras and Ypres. In 1917 he married Grizel Scott. In early 1918, Donald joined the British Military Mission to the Caucasus (known as Dunsterforce).
After the war, he and Grizel eventually set up home near Pietermaritzburg, South Africa where they brought up three daughters.
He died on May 3rd, 1949.
Born February 14th, 1874 in Kensington. He attended Haileybury School and went on to a long and distinguished career in the army.
Reggie served with several regiments :-
During his time with the 3rd Hussars, he fought in the Boer War (where family legend has it that he was laid out for dead and was saved only by waggling a finger).
The 1st King’s Dragoon Guards were stationed in Lucknow when the Great War broke out and they travelled to the Western Front via Marseille in late 1914. They were involved in action at Festubert in May 1915. In June 1916, Reggie was attached for a short period to the 1st/4th Seaforth Highlanders as 2nd in command and fought at High Wood on the Somme. Later in that year he was promoted to temporary Lt.Col. and given his own command of the 8th Battalion of the King’s Own Royal Lancaster Regiment which he held until March of 1918 serving with them at the Battle of Arras and the 3rd Battle of Ypres (Passchendaele). After a spell training the Iraqi army in the U.K., Reggie was requested to join the Middlesex Yeomanry with the Desert Mounted Corps and fought up through Palestine ending up at the Capture of Damascus.
Reggie was mentioned in dispatches twice and was awarded the D.S.O. for his actions during the war. His poignant account of life in the trenches survives. At retirement in 1925, he was promoted to the full rank of Lt.Col. of the 1st King’s Dragoon Guards. Reggie returned to Felmingham and spent his later life in Walcott, Norfolk where he died on April 1st, 1942.
Born July 25th, 1872 in Kensington. Gilbert attended Eton and spent time in New Zealand before going up to Trinity Hall, Cambridge.
After a period in the 4th Sherwood Foresters rising to the rank of Captain, he joined the colonial administrative staff of British Central Africa in 1897.
Gilbert died of blackwater fever a year later and was buried in front of Fort Lister, Mlanje.
Born July 14th, 1871 in Kensington. He attended Rev. Buckland’s preparatory school at Laleham near Sunbury before going on to Eton. Here he won many prizes and rowed for his house.
Ernest died of influenza at 7 Cromwell Rd., London, the home of his uncle Sir Frederick Seager Hunt M.P., in 1889.
Born February 4th, 1844 at Champion Hill, Camberwell, the eighth child of William Mortimore and Harriet Foster.
Alice and Walter spent the first 10 years of their married life in London and then moved to Sedgeford in 1880.
Following her husband’s death, Alice and and the younger children returned briefly to Surrey before moving to Norfolk at Lovell’s Hall, Terrington St. Clements. A spell in Heighington, Lincolnshire followed. Eventually Alice and Gertie settled in Felmingham, presumably to be near Nona and her young family in Aylsham.
Alice’s interest in photography waned in her later years, although she continued to be an avid recorder of her family’s life and achievements. She died in 1926.
Born May 31st, 1845 in Westminster, the fifth child of James Edward Hunt and Eliza Seager. The family had lived in India and his mother died during the Indian Mutiny of 1857.
Walter was educated at Harrow School and Trinity College, Cambridge and was called to the bar of the Inner Temple on 17th November 1869.
On July 14th 1870 he married Alice Mortimore at Holy Trinity, Paddington.
He took up a position as Justice of the Peace. The local J.P.s held sessions in Docking and Hunstanton each month. Walter was also on the Board of Guardians of the Docking Poor Law Union. The Docking Union owned and ran the Docking Workhouse on the Heacham Rd west of Docking.
Walter was also active in local church and charity ventures. Walter appears to have suffered declining health after the family moved to Surrey and spent the last few months of his life in Folkestone where he died in 1903.
CGS: Actually it was 9th/June!
button in the top right of the map display to select which years to display.Click on each of the numbered markers on the map below to see a photograph of the location. You may need to use the zoom button to see each marker clearly. The markers are close enough to give the impression of walking the route. Clicking on a photograph will show an enlarged view. Some markers have a historical photograph and information.
Below the map you can see the same information in tabular form. Again, clicking on each photograph will enlarge the view.