19^th JUNE – WILLIAM HAMILTON MACKENZIE & ELLEN YATES

On this day in 1929, my maternal Great-Uncle William Hamilton MACKENZIE married Ellen YATES at St Alfege Church in Greenwich. He was the brother of my grandmother, Jessie MACKENZIE and was 41 years old when he married.

William and Ellen had 3 children; Alexander (1930), Alan (1932-2008) and Joan May. I have exchanged several emails with Alexander & this is what he tells me about his father William:

                           “The reason I have so few memories of dad was that dad would leave home for work before we got up in a morning and we would be in bed before he arrived home at night. Then at the outbreak of the war in 1939 my mother packed us three children off to stay with her mother in  Pontefract, Yorkshire. My brother Alan and I stayed with my grand parents until April 1943 and in all that time I never saw my father. In May 1943 Dad got a bad cold which developed in to Pneumonia and he died on 11th May 1943. I vaguely remember Granddad John came to the funeral and some weeks later mother took us to his home at Shooters Hill Plumstead, but after that we never heard from them again.”