Gladys Victoria Gardner

Gran was born in Lincoln on 11/4/1900.  She was given the name of Gladys Victoria. She was third child out ten siblings.  Her Parents were Johnson Bingley (born 1871) and Florence Sara Patrick (born 1878) (Florence’s father Jackson Patrick was a Master Boat Builder by trade).  Gran’s siblings were as follows:

• Horace Edgar Patrick Lewis Bingley – born  30/7/1896 (Horace found out that Johnson Bingley was not his real father and that his real father was named Lewis so he included that name with his)
• Florence Dorothy Bingley – born 29/4/1898
• Gladys Victoria Bingley – born 11/4/1900 (Gran)
• Phyllis Irene Bingley – born 7/1/1904
• Ada Mary Bingley – born 27/11/1911
• Sidney Arthur Bingley – born 4/8/1912
• Vera Lillian Bingley – born 6/9/1914
• Alma Mary Bingley – born 19/5/1915 (died 23/12/1922 of pneumonia aged just 7)
• Lesley Johnson Bingley – born 26/2/1917
• Esmeralda Bingley – born 12/7/1920

Gran lived at 10 Cromwell Street in Lincoln for most of her life – in fact she died there. 10 Cromwell Street is etched on my memory because we had many letters from her with that address on and when I visited it (when she died) it looked so small.  It was a terraced house and had a tiny front parlour and large kitchen where everyone congregated.  I wondered how so many people could have lived there, but the house had large bedrooms – one room had two double beds; another had three single beds, and a third room had a double bed and a single bed.   

Gran was a great character and made us laugh a lot.  We do know from her daughter, Aunt Jean that Gran worked in Skegness as a waitress when she was a teenager and that she was talked into entering a “Beautiful Hair Competition” and that she won. But apart from that we don’t know much about her younger life. She got pregnant with Dad when she was twenty five and married  (on 16/09/1924) Albert Edward Gardner (Granddad) four months before Dad was born.  She was extremely close to her brothers and sisters and some of them lived in other houses in Cromwell Street too.  She gave birth to her second child Irene (Renee) three years later and had a third child Jean five years later when Gran was thirty five. Gran gave birth to Jean in the ambulance on her way to hospital.

They lived at the RAF Halton Base in Oxford.   She did not have much of a married life since Granddad was in the RAF and away from home a lot and, according to Jean, she had a very unhappy marriage to Granddad.   The marriage ended when Jean was just four years old.  Granddad had a new woman in his life and wanted a divorce but Gran flatly refused to give him one. 

Dad recalled that he was brought up mainly by Aunt Ralda and his Uncles Sid and Les as well as his maternal grandparents.  He said that both his parents were extremely strict but that he was very fond of his aunts, uncles and his grandparents. Gran used to visit us most years during the summer holidays.  She would stay with us for a week or two.  I remember she always sent Dad either a shirt or a pair of shoes every birthday and a box of goodies for us children at Xmas time.  Her daughter Renee left England to live in America as a young GI Bride in 1945 and Gran went to visit them a few times.  She encouraged me to become pen pals with my eldest cousin Penny.  Gran became ill in 1970 and died of heart failure.  She was 70 years old.   

Major World Events that happened in 1900 – the year that Gran was born

• UK – February 27th – The British Labour Party was formed under Ramsay MacDonald
• South Africa – February 28th – The end of Ladysmith’s 118 day siege
• Australia – The Commonwealth of Australia was created
• UK – Britain was building several new battleships for Japan
• UK – The Daily Express was first published
• UK – Oscar Wilde dies in Paris
• USA – Electric Cars 1900:  25% of all cars that were sold in 1900 were electric cars.  It will be interesting to see how many years it takes for 25% of all cars sold to be fully electric or Hybrid.
• Paris – 2nd Modern Olympic Games 1900:The Summer Olympic Games of the II Olympiad are held in Paris, France. This is the first Olympics where women are allowed to compete
• Italy – Italy’s King Assassinated (1900): On the evening of July 30, anarchist Angelo Bresci shot the king of Italy, King Umberto I, three times. The assassination was in retaliation for a violently crushed 1898 labour revolt. His son, Victor Emmanuel III, succeeded him.
• USA – Kodak Introduces $1 Brownie Cameras (1900): The Brownie camera was the first hand-held camera that was cheap enough and simple enough for even children to use, making photography accessible to the masses.