Frederick Johnson

Frederick Johnson (1914 - 2005)

FATHER:	MOTHER:	SPOUSE:	OFFSPRING:
William Ingram (b.1894)	Wilhelmina Johnson (b.1895)	Linda Robinson (b.1919)	Jennifer Johnson (b.1946) Michael Johnson (b.1952)

BIRTH:	16 May 1914 - Ryhope, Sunderland
MARRIAGE:	31 August 1940 - Balham, South London
DEATH:	11 July 2005 - Sunderland General Hospital

KNOWN ADDRESSES:

33 Bevan Avenue, Ryhope, Sunderland - c.1947
Western Hill, Ryhope, Sunderland - c.1957

BIOGRAPHY:

Fredrick was born on 16 May 1914, the son of Wilhelmina Johnson. Wilhelmina was only nineteen and unmarried at the time. Frederick never had any contact with his father, William Ingram. As a child Frederick remembers regularly carrying his Uncle Benny's wooden leg on the bus for him as they travelled in to town to do errands - in particular to collect alimoney left by his father with a solicitor's office in Newcastle. Benny was Wilhelmina's brother who lost his leg during the First World War. Wilhelmina later married Tommy Surtees and Frederick soon had a half-sister, Jenny (b.1924), and a half-brother, Tommy (b.1926).

Frederick was an intelligent boy who sat and passed a test that allowed him to attend grammar school, a huge achievement for a working class child. However, Frederick was not able to continue his studies beyond the age of fourteen as his family needed the extra money. He therefore missed out on the opportunities that would have existed for someone who had managed to pass the exams taken as a sixteen year old.

When he left school he started work at the Co-Operative Store in Ryhope. He started working in the store but spent the majority of his "co-op" career on the road taking household orders for food and later, collecting the amounts owed.

Towards the end of the 1930's Frederick travelled to London with his colleague and friend, Harry Tough (b.1909). They stayed with Harry's Aunt and Uncle in Balham, South London. Frederick and Harry's cousin, Linda (b.1919), started courting and on 31st August 1940 married in Balham, South London. Linda remembers wearing a light blue dress and there were seven air raids during the day and another six at night. There was a hole in the side of the church where a bomb had struck earlier in the year! The wedding day was extremely hot and as there were no refrigerators many of the cream cakes turned sour.

Frederick was conscripted into the Royal Air Force (RAF) during World War Two. On 12 June 1940 Frederick was examined in Newcastle and was passed into category one. His service started on 2 July 1940. He was posted overseas on 13 December 1943 to Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe) and South Africa and returned on 27 October 1945. His service ended on 5 December 1945 and he was given an absolute discharge on 22 February 1946. He was awarded the Defence Medal for his years of service.

During the war his wife, Linda, worked at an insurance agency in Piccadilly then the George Dance Musical Place, which was a theatre. The George Dance Musical Theatre closed during the blitz so in 1942 Linda moved back to Sunderland. She stayed in Grangetown with two of her aunts. Linda worked in the Advanced Ordnance Depot for two years, continuing to write to Frederick until the war ended in 1945. Frederick then returned from Africa and they moved into a house in Bevan Avenue, Ryhope. In approximately 1957 they moved to their current house on Western Hill, Ryhope.

Frederick and Linda had two children; Jennifer (b.1946) and Michael (b.1952). After the war Frederick returned to work for the Co-Operative Store in Ryhope until his retirement.

After breaking a hip in early June 2005 Frederick died at Sunderland General Hospital on 11 July 2005 and was cremated on 18 July 2005. The cause of death was septicemia, caused by infection in his hip wound. He was a 91-year-old grandfather of four.

Septicemia is described in Medline Plus Medical Encyclopedia as:

Blood poisoning; Bacteremia with sepsis

Septicemia is the presence of bacteria in the blood (bacteremia) and is often associated with severe disease.

There was a large turn out at his cremation service. As well as the majority of Frederick's close family and friends, the family were very pleased to see three of the four children of Frederick's half brothers (Tommy and Jenny Surtees) and Frederick's half sister, Hilda Ingram (maiden name), and her daughter, Ann Winn. Hilda is a legitimate daughter of Frederick's father, Billy Ingram. Apparently for a long time they knew their father had an illegitimate son but until very recently they did not know it was Frederick.

IMAGES: (click to enlarge)

Frederick, shortly after joining the RAF in the summer of 1940, aged 25

Frederick and Linda, at their wedding in August 1940

Frederick and Linda with their wedding party comprising
of Fred Lish, Norah Robinson and a sailor named Joe.

Frederick, a month before his death, in 2005

HISTORICAL EVENTS:

1914 – BILL GRANTING HOME RULE TO IRELAND BECOME LAW.
1914 – WORLD WAR I, the Great War, starts.
1916 – DAVID LLOYD GEORGE (Liberal) becomes Prime Minister.
1917 – GEORGE V CHANGES THE NAME OF THE ROYAL HOUSE FROM SAXE-COBURG-GOTHA TO WINDSOR.
1918 – UNIVERSAL SUFFRAGE ACT PASSED giving the vote to women over thirty years old.
1918 – WORLD WAR I ENDS.
1920 – GOVERNMENT OF IRELAND ACT PASSED, superseding an earlier unacceptable act. Six of the nine counties of Ulster are to be known as Northern Ireland while the other three and the provinces of Connaught, Munster and Leinster are to form the Irish Free State. Northern Ireland is given its own parliament and permitted to send representatives to Westminster while the Irish Free State is given a similar status to that of Britain’s commonwealth. The Irish Free State ceases to be part of the United Kingdom from early 1922.
1922 – ANDREW BONAR LAW (Conservative) becomes Prime Minister.
1923 – ALBERT EINSTEIN’S THEORY OF RELATIVITY discards the concept of absolute motion and instead treats only relative motion between two systems or frames of reference. One consequence of the theory is that space and time are no longer viewed as separate, independent entities but rather are seen to form a four-dimensional continuum called space-time. Einstein also sought unsuccessfully for many years to incorporate the theory into a unified field theory valid also for subatomic and electromagnetic phenomena.
1923 – STANLEY BALDWIN (Conservative) becomes Prime Minister.
1924 – JAMES MACDONALD (Labour) becomes Prime Minister.
1926 – DECLARATION MADE AT THE IMPERIAL CONFERENCE stating that all the nations of the British Commonwealth of Nations, notably UK, Canada, Australia, the Irish Free State, South Africa, New Zealand and Newfoundland, were equal in status, each independent of the others but uniting under a common crown.
1928 – UNIVERSAL SUFFRAGE FINALLY ACHIEVED IN 1928, when women were given exactly the same voting rights as males.
1929 – GREAT DEPRESSION EFFECTS BRITAIN after a long period of economic stagnation after the war.
1935 – STANLEY BALDWIN (Conservative) becomes Prime Minister.
1936 – EDWARD VIII ASCENDS THE THRONE following the death of his father George V.
1936 – EDWARD VIII ABDICATES THE THRONE TO MARRY MRS SIMPSON. Edward becomes the Duke of Windsor.
1936 – GEORGE VI ASCENDS THE THRONE following the abdication of his brother, Edward VIII.
1937 – ARTHUR NEVILLE CHAMBERLAIN (Conservative) becomes Prime Minister.
1939 – GERMANY INVADES POLAND AND GREAT BRITAIN ENTERS WORLD WAR II.
1940 – WINSTON CHURCHILL (Conservative) becomes Prime Minister.
1940 – BATTLE OF BRITAIN FOUGHT.
1941 – ATLANTIC CHARTER SIGNED OFF NEWFOUNDLAND whereby the United States gave “all aid short of war”.
1941 – JAPANESE ATTACK ON PEARL HARBOR precipitates American entry into the war.
1941 – BRITAIN LOSES MANY OF IT’S PACIFIC STRONGHOLDS TO THE JAPANESE, most notably Singapore, Burma, Malaya and the British Western Pacific Islands.
1942 – ANGLO-AMERICAN LANDINGS IN NORTHWEST AFRICA start to increase the pressure on German forces. Similar landings in Sicily in 1943 have the same affect.
1944 – D-DAY LANDINGS IN NORMANDY, FRANCE, pushes the Germans back.
1945 – WORLD WAR II ENDS as Germany surrenders in May 1945 and Japan in September 1945.
1945 – CLEMENT ATTLEE (Labour) becomes Prime Minister.
1945 – GREAT BRITIAN IS SEVERELY AFFECTED BY THE WAR. It has lost 360,000 servicemen, 60,000 civilians, 4.5 million dwellings and 3/5 of its merchant fleet.
1946 – NATIONAL HEALTH SERVICE ACT nationalizes hospitals and provides free medical and dental care for all.
1947 – INDIAN INDEPENDENCE IS GRANTED, sparking a religious war between Pakistan and India.
1949 – THE GOVERNMENT OF GREAT BRITAIN IS FORCED TO RADICALLY DE-VALUE THE POUND by decreasing its value against the US dollar from $4.05 to $2.80. This has the dramatic effect of stimulating exports (as UK goods are cheaper) and stifling imports (as overseas goods are more expensive).
1949 – IN THE HEIGHT OF THE COLD WAR, BRITAIN JOINS WITH THE UNITED STATES, FRANCE, ITALY AND EIGHT OTHER NATIONS TO FORM THE NORTH ATLANTIC TREATY ORGANIZATION (NATO), which provides for common defense in the event of Russian aggression.
1949 – THE IRISH FREE STATE SEVERS ALL COMMONWEALTH TIES WITH GREAT BRITAIN and becomes the Republic of Ireland.
1951 – WINSTON CHURCHILL (Conservative) becomes Prime Minister for the second time.
1952 – ELIZABETH II ASCENDS THE THRONE following the death of her father, George VI.
1955 – SIR ANTHONY EDEN (Conservative) becomes Prime Minister.
1956 – SUEZ CRISIS. Egypt, occupied by Britain since 1882, nationalizes the Suez Canal, hitherto controlled by the British, in response to an Anglo-American refusal to assist in the building of the Aswan Dam. The canal is vital to British shipping in providing a sea route to the oil of the Middle East and trade with India. British and French forces attempt to seize the canal but are halted abruptly when world opinion, and lack of US support, become apparent.
1957 – HAROLD MACMILLAN (Conservative) becomes Prime Minister.
1961 – GREAT BRITAIN APPLIES FOR MEMBERSHIP OF THE EUROPEAN COMMON MARKET. However, they are told they will have to cut trade ties with the commonwealth. Great Britain does not join.
1963 – SIR ALEC DOUGLAS-HOME (Conservative) becomes Prime Minister.
1964 – HAROLD WILSON (Labour) becomes Prime Minister.
1969 – MAN LANDS ON THE MOON. Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin walk on the moon on July 20th, 1969, the first time man has set foot on another planetary body.
1973 – GREAT BRITAIN ENTERS THE EUROPEAN ECONOMIC COMMUNITY after a poll of the population narrowly votes in favour.
1979 – MARGARET THATCHER (Conservative) becomes Prime Minister.
1991 – JOHN MAJOR (Conservative) becomes Prime Minister.
1994 – TONY BLAIR (Labour) becomes Prime Minister.