The family of Benjamin Nadin and Hetty Hester Kirby

Benjamin Nadin junior was born March 1st 1884 in Bakewell, Derbyshire, England. He was the son of Benjamin Nadin Senior et Sarah Ellen Salt. (A Certified Copy of this Act is found further down.) For more on them and their family, press HERE. .

On the Sixth of May 1909, Benjamin Nadin jr, Bachelor, Metropolitan Policeman, 25 years of age, living at Section House Hall Dockyard Devenport, son of Benjamin Nadin, labourer, married Hetty Esther Kirby, spinster, 22 years of age, living at 3 Wembury Street Plymouth, daughter of the late Edward Henry Kirby, shipowner, at the Registry Office of the District of Plymouth. (A Certified Copy of this Act is found further down.) For more on them and their family, press HERE.

On the 2nd of April 1911, day of the Census, he was living in Plymstock, Derbyshire, England. (This Act is found further down.) His eldest son Benjamin Nadin III is said to be a year old and his eldest daughter Ada Nadin, 5 months old. He is said to be 27 years of age and his wife, 24. They had been married 2 years and had had two children, both still alive and born in Devenport, Devon. He has been born in Hartington, Derbyshire. He was a Police Constable in the Metropolitan Police Force.

He died of influenza the 20th of October 1918 in Stonehouse, Devon, England at 35 years of age. (A Certified Copy of this Act is found further down.)

His widow had to start working. She found a job in the Police Canteen. She had what was a full time job and so had no means to look after her four children. At that time her eldest Benjamin Nadin III was nine years of age and going to school. Her next Ada Nadin was about eight years old and going to school. Her third Eileen Nadin was seven and going to school and her fourth Thomas Nadin was only four. She decided to send the second and third children to a police Orphanage and to keep the baby home under the care of the eldest child, whom she took out of school for the purpose.

Later she was able to reunite the family when she married Ernest J. Gray, another policeman in the same force than her first husband. That marriage took place at Devonport, Devon, and was recorded in the third trimester of 1921. At that time, she was 35 years old, and him, 46.

He was eleven years her senior. She had a child from him, Lloyd J. Gray.

This only child of the second marriage was born 14th February 1922. Unfortunately, he, with his half brother Thomas Nadin, contracted rhumatic fever when young. Lloyd J. Gray died in December 1946 and his death was recorded at Newton Abbot Devon. Then the parents purchased a cemetary plot for their only child and themselves.

The 1939 "Census" done to find who could be called for active service in the Armed Forces (This Act is found further down.) yield the present information: Ernest J. Gray was a Metropolitan Police Pensioner, born the 13th July 1875; his wife Hetty Esther Gray was born 3rd September 1886; Eileen Nadin, her third child, was born 26th June 1912, and was soon to become Eileen Saunders; Thomas E. Nadin, her fourth child, born 17 August 1914, was considered an invalid, although he later was recruted by the Air Force but soon had to be incapacitated. Lloyd J. Gray, born in 1922, was a Cinema Attendant at the time and too young to be called then. He had contracted rhumatic fever when young. He died age 24 years and his death was recorded in December 1946 in Newton Abbot Devon.

From all this one can surmise that Benjamin Nadin Junior and his wife had during their 9 year marriage 4 children:

1. Benjamin Nadin III was born on 10th June 1909. He was nine years old when his father died and had to spend some years in a Police Orphanage until his mother remarried. At the 1939 Census, he was living in the house of Albert Joseph Clark, his father-in-law, born 21st May 1882, widower of Lily Spear, who was a boot and shoe repairer and a master electrician. His wife was Joyce Ellen L. Nadin, born 21st September 1911. He was working for the Post Office as an engineer, most precisely as a cable jointer. (This Act is found further down.) He died at age 55 years and his death was registered in September 1964 at Newton Abbot Devon. His widow died in 1970 in Torbay.
   
   
2. Ada Nadin was born 14th October 1910. She was eight years old when her father died. She was taken out of school to look after her younger brother Thomas until her mother remarried. She married Sydney J. Chamings in Newton Abbot in the last trimester of 1934. At the 1939 Census, she was living with her husband who was born on the 21st July 1906. He was a dairyman Roundsman at the retail level and was in the dairy business. She was assisting her husband. (This Act is found further down.) He died in June 1970. She died in Torbay, Devon, in 1989 and her death was registered in the last quarter of the year.
   
   
3. Eileen Nadin was born 26th June 1912. She was seven years old when her father died and had to spend some years in a Police Orphanage until her mother remarried. She was at home with his mother and step father at the 1939 Census. (This Act is found further down.) She married a Thomas Cecil Saunders. She died in 1991. Her husband, in 1968. One of their children Neville T. Saunders, was born in 1938 and died in 2013.
   
   
4. Thomas Edward Nadin was born on the 17th August 1914 and contracted rhumatic fever when young. He was four when his father died. He was looked after at home by his sister Ada Nadin until her mother remarried. He was at home with his mother and step father at the 1939 Census. (This Act is found further down.) Thomas Nadin marriage to Neta Jane NcTait is recorded in Newton Abbot Devon in the third trimester of 1943. He died on the First of March 1970 in Torbay, Devon. For more on them and their family, press HERE. .

Ernest J. Gray died in 1948 aged 70 and was buried in the plot he had purchased to bury his only son, his wife and himself. Hetty Kirby, his widow, who was born on 28 August 1886, died in Torbay on the 28th of September 1973 and was buried with them.

She had outlived her two husbands and her three sons: Llyod J. Gray in 1946, Benjamin Nadin III in 1964 and Thomas Nadin in 1970.

Scanned Documents and their Transcription:

1. Certified Copy of the Birth Certificate of Benjamin Nadin (put online by Russ St. Hilaire on 13th December 2016):
   
   
   
   
2. Certified Copy of the Marriage Certificate of Benjamin Nadin and Hetty Esther Kirby (put online by Russ St. Hilaire on 30th October 2016):
   
   
   
   
3. Left Part of Benjamin Nadin's Family Entry on the 1911 Census:
   
   
   
   
4. Right Part of Benjamin Nadin's Family Entry on the 1911 Census:
   
   
   
   
5. Certified Copy of the Death Certificate of Benjamin Nadin (put online by Russ St. Hilaire on 13th December 2016):
   
   
   
   
6. Ernest Gray's Family Entry on the 1939 "Census":
   
   
   
   
7. Benjamin Nadin's Family Entry on the 1939 "Census":
   
   
   
   
8. Sydney Chamings and Ada Nadin's Family Entry on the 1939 "Census":