Selected Biography

Angier, Horace Dudley – Born: Dovercourt, Essex on 10.10.1879.[1]  Parents: Robert Angier (Licensed Victualler and Landlord of the Cock and Bell Inn in Long Melford) and Louisa [née Birt].  Home: The White Hart, High Road, Dovercourt, Essex (1881), Botney Farm, Stratford St Andrew, Suffolk (1891), The Anchor, 75 Friars Street, Sudbury, Suffolk (1901), Laburnum Villas, Waldingfield Road, Sudbury (1911), The Gables, Hall Street, Long Melford (1939) to [1948].  Occupation: Ironmonger’s Assistant (1901), Commercial Traveller (1911), Manager of Ward’s Ironworks in Long Melford [1916] to [1934],[2] Agricultural Implement Agent and Special Constable (1939).  Service Record: Horace held the office of Honorary Secretary to the Long Melford Training Corps in 1915.  At the Melford Military Service Tribunal in March 1916 David Ward the owner of the Melford iron foundry, applied for absolute exemption for Horace Angier the manager of his Hall Street business.  He stated at some length that: ‘If the applicant were called up it would be impossible for him to carry on the business alone.  He [Ward] has to attend five markets a week, and in his absence, it was necessary for a manager to be left to supervise the business, to attend to people who called and gave orders, to buy goods required for business purposes.  If Angier went it might mean thirty men would be thrown out of work.  A timekeeper could not manage the business; nor a woman, who might work as clerk.’  Exemption was guaranteed for six months, which in October was extended for a further six months, with the proviso that Angier join the Long Melford Volunteer Training Corps.  In March and October 1917 further periods of six months were granted, earning the opprobrium from at least one section of the community, and prompting an anonymous letter to be sent to the Tribunal.  Whilst the actual content is not recorded, the gist can be deduced from the comments of the chairman who declared that: ‘Some disgruntled applicant, who has not the courage to sign his name, sends a note re the above’s accidental omission and asking a malicious and unfounded insinuation’.[3]  Died: Long Melford, Suffolk on 16.12.1948.[4]

Notes – [1] Date of birth from the 1939 Register for Long Melford. [2] Occupation confirmed see his father’s entry in the National Probate Calendar in 1934. [3] For Training Corps office see Bury Free Press 20.2.1915 and Suffolk and Essex Free Press 12.5.1915.  For the Tribunal’s rulings see SEFP 15.3.1916, 4.10.1916, 28.3.1917 and 12.12.1917. [4] Date of death from the National Probate Calendar.