Henry Houghton is not on the war memorial. He is included here as he was on the Absent Voters’ Register for 1918 and also on the Electoral Roll for Saxlingham Nethergate until 1929. He is always listed as being an absent voter as he was in the Navy.
Henry was born 28 June 1877 in Ryde, Isle of Wight, Hampshire. His parents were Henry and Margaret Anna Houghton (nee Barker). His father was a civil servant. His mother was Irish and his parents married in 1874 in Kilkeel, Ireland. Henry was baptised at St Simon’s Church. Portsea on 23 October 1877 and the family lived at 16 Kensington Road, Portsea.
Henry had three brothers and a sister.
John William Hobart Houghton born17 January 1876 in Kensington, London. He became a doctor and was a Colonel in the Royal Army Medical Corps.
Cecil Hobart Houghton was born in Dublin in 1879. He was also a doctor and worked and lived in South Africa. His first wife Mary Ogilvy Macgregor died in the Bay of Biscay 12 September 1918 when SS Galway Castle was torpedoed by a German U boat. She was one of 143 people who lost their lives
Kenneth Arthur Hobart Houghton born in Dublin 1880. He was a school inspector in South Africa.
Margaret Emily Hobart Houghton born in Dublin 1886. She married a merchant seaman, Richard Whitaker.
Henry joined the Royal Marines Light Infantry on 1 September 1895 and spent all of his working life in the regiment.
In 1901 the family were living at 9 Cluny Terrace, Edinburgh. His mother had died and his father had retired. Henry was listed as being a lieutenant in the Royal Marines.
In 1911 he was a captain and living at Browndown Camp, Lee on Solent, near Gosport.
His name appears on the electoral rolls for Saxlingham Nethergate up until 1929. His address however is that of the Dr. and Mrs. H. Webb-Ware, firstly at Belcombe and then at Nethergate House, Pitts Hill, where they moved to. It is not known what his connection with the Webb-Ware family was. May Webb-Ware was a nurse and midwife and had been born in Ireland like Henry’s mother. It is also known that Henry’s maternal grandfather had been a doctor and that two of his brothers were doctors and may have trained with Hugh Webb-Ware or his wife.
He frequently travelled to South Africa presumably to visit his brothers. On 27 September 1922 he travelled there on SS Garth Castle, he was a lieutenant colonel in the Royal Marines. He gave his last address before leaving as Nethergate House, Saxlingham Nethergate.
When he travelled again on 22 September 1927, his address was The Barracks in Portsmouth.
When he travelled in 1935 he had retired from the Royal Marines and gave his last address as Tunbridge Wells. However in 1938 when he once more travelled to Durban his last address was again Nethergate House, Saxlingham Nethergate.
He never married.
He retired to South Africa and died in the Eastern Cape in 1956.
Acknowledgements
England & Wales, Birth, marriage, death index 1837-2005
UK Census Collection
www.findmypast.co.uk
Norfolk Electoral Rolls-Southern Division Saxlingham Nethergate and Thorpe, (Absent Voters Lists 1918-1920) and 1920-1929
Cruickshank Family Tree. www.ancestry.co.uk
Church of England, Baptisms Records, Portsea
Passenger Lists, outgoing and incoming, www.ancestry.co.uk