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Pte. Henry Grimmer
British Army Army Veterinary Corps
from:Oakham, Rutland
Henry Grimmer was born in Oakham, Rutland on 19th June 1871, the second of the eight children of Henry & Elizabeth Grimmer. Henry senior was a groom for Lord Lonsdale of Barleythorpe Hall & died aged just 40yrs old after being kicked by a horse. Henry junior (known as Harry) was 13yrs at the time & his mother was left a widow with 8 children to bring up, the youngest being just 4 months old.
By the time he was 21yrs Henry was living at 4 Reece Mews, Kensington, London & working as a hansom cab driver until he volunteered to fight in the Boer War. In a Rutland parish magazine of 1900 he was listed as Lance Corporal Henry Grimmer of the Leicestershire Regiment. Returning from the Boer War in early 1901 he seems to have found work in Melton Mowbray, where two of his younger brothers were working & it was here in Melton Mowbray that he married Mary Ann Ofield in November 1901. Before too long the newly weds had moved to Staffordshire & lived in Rangemore & Tutbury where their first 5 children were born. We assume that Henry worked as a groom during this time possibly for the Burton family (Bass Brewers) of Rangemore Hall who were frequent hosts to the aristocracy & royalty. By 1911 the family were back in Oakham, Rutland & where 3 more children were born. Henry worked as a groom at Barleythorpe Hall as his father had done & where in 1914 Lord Lonsdale gave a home to the staff, horses, carriages & cars of the King of Belgium during WW1.
In May 1915 Henry volunteered for the Army Veterinary Corps as Private SE 5182 & about which we know very little apart from photos showing that he was in Egypt working with camels at a 'hospital'.
Returning home at the end of the war Henry & his younger family lived above the coach house of the Hall at Burley on the Hill, the home of the Finch family & for who Harry worked as a groom & on the estate and his wife Mary as cook until they retired. After Mary died in 1951 Henry went to live in Barleythorpe with his daughter & died aged 87 yrs in 1959 during a flu epidemic.
