Griggs, Miss Elfreda

Notes on Miss Elfreda Griggs

See interview tapes 183, 186, 188, photos M738-M740.

Born c 1909 in Hatfield Peverel.

Parents Father died at age of 37, about end of First World War.

Brothers Younger than her. Older one was Rex, younger was Alfred, latter killed in Second World War by bomb at Marconi’s factory in Chelmsford.

Residences. To Witham some time after the age of three, to shop at 48 Church Street. Evicted from there when her father died, perhaps lived in the cottage next door for about three years afterwards. Then perhaps to cottage c.54 Church Street. Then she bought the house, Beverley, Chalks Road, and lived there with her mother. Both stayed there the rest of their lives.

Work. She trained as a music teacher, but was not allowed to teach in schools because her own school qualifications weren’t adequate. So for her whole working life, she taught private piano pupils in her home.


Newspaper cuttings.

Essex County Chronicle, 24 March 1916, page 8.
Alfred Griggs was Elfreda’s father

‘Soldiers charged’. Special bench. Driver Wm Hughes, 19, 3/2nd Lowland Royal Engineers’. Stealing fruit cordial. Private Michael Corrigan, 20, same regt, with being involved. Belonged to G J Hicks of 9 Easton Road, who had a canteen [for soldiers] at Faulkbourne, broken into. ‘Alfred Griggs, shopkeeper, Church Street, Witham, said the prisoners came to his shop on Sunday afternoon and he gave them cups of tea.’ They offered to sell him the bottles. Remanded to Petty Session.

Essex County Chronicle, 23 June 1916, page 6
This is a tribunal to decide whether he should join the army.

Witham tribunal … Conditional exemption was granted the following: … Alfred Griggs, greengrocer, Chipping Hill, 2 months’.

9 May 1941, Begent, Chelmsford at War, page 14
Alfred Griggs was Elfreda’s brother

Bombs on Marconi’s at Chelmsford, seventeen killed. They included Alfred Howard Griggs, ‘second son of the late Mr and Mrs Griggs of Witham’, who ‘had been married for nearly two years to Joan Griggs, the daughter of Mr and Mrs P N Smith of 16 Nelson Road. He lived at ‘Oaklyn’ in Moulsham Drive and prior to working at Marconi’s had worked for eight years for the stonemasons Messrs J B Slythe of London Road. He was a member of Marconi’s Home Guard and was buried at the Borough Cemetery on 16th May after a funeral service at St John’s Moulsham’.

 

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