GOODING, Thomas Henry
Thomas Henry Gooding was born at Debenham, Suffolk in 1864, son of Abram Gooding (1813-19 January 1893), a harness maker, and his second wife Kezia née Theobald (1829-1879), widow of William Ling (1829-1854), who married at Ipswich in 1864, Abram's first wife Mary Ann died on 10 January 1858, aged 45 leaving 8 children. In 1871, Thomas was a 6-year-old scholar, living at Chancery Lane, Debenham with his parents, 58-year-old Abram and 42-year-old Kezia, and two stepsiblings, Frederick 12 and Mary Ann 9, and two siblings Albert 4 and Kate 1, all born at Debenham. In 1881, an 18-year-old painter, boarding at Lime Tree Place, Stowmarket, the home of William Scarffe, a general labourer, and his wife Jane but by 1891 Thomas was a 26-year-old tar paviour’s foreman, living at 11 Hollydale Road, Camberwell, London, the home of 51-year-old widow Emily Mennie and her 31-year-old daughter Florence and later that year married at Camberwell, Mary Ann Florence Robbins Mennie. By 1901, Thomas was a 36-year-old commercial traveller, still living at Hollydale Road, with his 41-year-old wife Florence, a stepdaughter, 16-year-old Maud Amelia Hylton, his three children and his mother-in-law, 63-year-old Emily Mennie. By 1911, they had moved to 8 Gippeswyk Avenue, Ipswich, still a commercial traveller, with four of their six surviving of ten children. A painter of landscapes in oils and water-colours and a member of the Ipswich Fine Art Club 1932-1935, exhibiting a total of fourteen works the subjects were mostly rural scenes including, in 1932 'Autumn', in 1933 ‘Spring in the Meadows’, 'Winter Glow', ‘A Suffolk Lane’ and ‘A Wayside Cottage’ and in 1935 'Gainsborough Lane, Ipswich', 'Belstead Road, Ipswich', 'Bluebell Time', 'Spring Time, Nacton Woods' and 'Evening on the Common, Southwold'. Thomas Henry Gooding died at 21 Gippeswyk Avenue, Ipswich on 21 March 1936, aged 71, and his wife followed him in 1947, aged 87.