FRENCH, Geoffrey Maurice
Geoffrey Maurice French was born at Redhill, Surrey on 28 July and baptised on 17 September 1881, son of Revd George French, H.M. Inspector of Schools, and his wife Matilda Jane Crabtee née Lane, widow of Revd Ely Willcox Crabrtree (1835-1874), H.M. Inspector of Schools, who married at Whitburn, South Shields on 20 July 1880. Geoffrey was educated at Enfield House School, The Avenue, Kingston, Surbiton, Surrey. On 6 June 1899 he successfully passed his examinations as an assistant clerkship in the Royal Navy and in 1901, a clerk officer on the ‘Orlando’, but seems to have given up the sea and he married at Redhill, Surrey on 14 April 1910, Evelyn Neale Turner (24 April 1883-14 July 1967), daughter of Frank Turner and Ellen Elizabeth Churchman. In 1911, a 29-year-old ‘retired assistant paymaster R.N.’ now a secretary’s clerk in a London hospital, living at The Lawn, Tadworth, Surrey with his 27-year-old wife, Evelyn Neale, born Woodside, Surrey. A landscape painter in watercolour and a member of Ipswich Art Club 1934-1947 showing at least eighteen works from ‘Cora Lynn’, 23 Bath Road, Felixstowe, Suffolk, including in 1935 'Mountain Snows', 'Pax Dei' and '14th Century Manor House at Tretover, South Wales', in 1936 views of Canterbury, in 1937 'Bryber, Scilly Isles', 'The Third Floor Back' and 'De Cloisters, Canterbury', in 1941 'The Birches of Arisaig', 'Glen Nevis' and Malmesbury Abbey'. In 1939, a retired naval officer, living at 23 Bath Road, Felixstowe with his wife Evelyn and son Arthur Geoffrey French (29 January 1913-2 April 1992). Geoffrey Maurice French died at Musgrove Park Hospital, Taunton, Devon on 13 October 1953, aged 72 and his wife died at Felixstowe in 1967. They had three children born at Tadworth, Surrey 1913-1919.