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Henry Benjamin Vitler 1871-1960
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Henry Benjamin was the eldest child of Benjamin & Emma Vitler. His Grandson, John Henry Vitler tells his story: My Grandfather, Henry Benjamin Vitler was born on 8th August 1871 at Battle, East Sussex. Not much is known about his early life, and this story starts in about 1895 or so. At this point in time he was working in the confectionary/bakery trade. My Grandmother Jane Ann Guy was the first child of a family of five, four daughters and a son. Her father Charles Guy was a gardener/domestic at ‘The Towers’ in Hollington, near Hastings. It would be nice to assume that they met while he was delivering bread to the house! However, it was at this time that she met Henry B. Jane was at this time a governess to the children of the house. Although we do not know the circumstances of their elopement, we can assume Jane’s father Charles did not approve. Nevertheless they eloped to Dover and were married at the Chapel Congregational Church in 1897. My father, Henry Benjamin Charles Vitler was born in Dover, and soon after they moved to Godstone, Surrey. The circumstances of their move to the Portsmouth area are not known to me, but the move must have been around 1925. Just prior to World War II they became butler and housekeeper to a banker in the Bournemouth area, until they retired and came back to Portsmouth, where they lived with my parents and myself until their deaths. |
Henry Benjamin Vitler with his wife Jane
Photograph supplied courtesy of John H Vitler |
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