{"id":2971,"date":"2022-04-27T18:51:09","date_gmt":"2022-04-27T17:51:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.hibbittbarnes.uk\/blog\/?p=2971"},"modified":"2025-07-02T11:49:11","modified_gmt":"2025-07-02T10:49:11","slug":"on-this-day-9th-april","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.hibbittbarnes.uk\/blog\/on-this-day-9th-april","title":{"rendered":"On This Day… 9th April"},"content":{"rendered":"

9TH APRIL<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

On 9th April 1882, my great-grandmother, Alice Dando, nee Free,<\/a><\/strong> was born in Hadstock, a village in Essex not far from Saffron Walden. Her father, Stephen Free<\/strong>, was 66 years old when she was born and was much older than her mother, who was his second wife. Sadly Stephen died within the year but her mother lived until 1921.<\/p>\n

Alice had a nickname of Benny and is pictured aged 4. My dad remembers her as a sweet, kind, very petite lady. She died in 1954 at the age of 71 and was cremated at Efford Crematorium in Plymouth.<\/p>\n

\"Alice

Alice Free, aged 4<\/p><\/div>\n

Today also marks the passing of my great-uncle, Charles Henry Martin<\/a><\/strong> in 1942. He was born in 1903 in Twerton-on-Avon, Bath, Somerset, and married my great-aunt, Nellie Gertrude Hibbitt<\/strong>, in 1927. Charles was in the royal navy and reached the rank of Lieutenant Commander. Sadly during WWII, his ship, HMS Hermes, was sunk by the Japanese off Ceylon (present day Sri Lanka). Most of the survivors were rescued by a nearby hospital ship, although 307 men from Hermes were lost, including Charles.<\/p>\n

Charles and Nell never had any children. He is commemorated on the Plymouth Naval Memorial on Plymouth Hoe on Panel 63, Column 1.<\/p>\n

\"Charles

Charles Henry Martin<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

9TH APRIL On 9th April 1882, my great-grandmother, Alice Dando, nee Free, was born in Hadstock, a village in Essex not far from Saffron Walden. Her father, Stephen Free, was 66 years old when she was born and was much … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2974,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[30,23,54],"class_list":["post-2971","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-on-this-day","tag-free","tag-hibbitt","tag-martin"],"aioseo_notices":[],"post_mailing_queue_ids":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hibbittbarnes.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2971","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hibbittbarnes.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hibbittbarnes.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hibbittbarnes.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hibbittbarnes.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2971"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.hibbittbarnes.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2971\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2978,"href":"https:\/\/www.hibbittbarnes.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2971\/revisions\/2978"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hibbittbarnes.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2974"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hibbittbarnes.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2971"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hibbittbarnes.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2971"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hibbittbarnes.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2971"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}