Family of Gerald Frederick Coape HUNTRISS and Dorothy FOSTER

1901 census - Ermington, Devon (Father had died in the previous year)

1911 census - boarder at Marlborough

Appointed Second Lieutenant, special Reserve of Officers, 16 Dec 1915

Gerald Huntriss was commissioned into the Royal Garrison Artillery (Special Reserve) on 13 December 1915. His date of entry to a theatre of war - or indeed which theatre of war - is not known. A photo of him appeared in the Illustrated London News on 18 March 1916, perhaps in connection with his commission. Promoted Lieutenant on 1 July 1917, Huntriss was disembodied in 1919 and formally relinquished his commission on 1 April 1920.

When the Second World War broke out Gerald Huntriss was aged 43. He again offered his service and was commissioned as a Lieutenant in the Royal Artillery on 6 July 1940. He served for seven months before relinquishing his commission ‘on account of ill-health’ on 12 February 1941. As he saw no active service and did not serve the time necessary for the award of the Defence Medal, Huntriss’s only confirmed medal entitlement for the Second World War was the War Medal 1939-45, which required 28 days’ service. However a letter held by his family suggests that in December 1944 he was an Air Raid Warden in Cheltenham - which would mean he was additionally entitled to the Defence Medal, assuming he joined in about 1941.

Gerald Huntriss’s death was registered in Cheltenham in May 1983, when he was aged 87 - not bad for a man discharged from the army on the grounds of ill-health some 42 years before!

Taken from an e-mail from Angela Barrett

Gerald and his first wife Dorothy lived in my house for 10 years before partitioning the garden and building an adjacent house named Danum [later Cleyne Hage and Country Views now Field House]. I believe they found the rooms in this house too small for their rather splendid antique furniture and wished to have larger sized rooms hence Danum House which has undergone several transitions since its inception.

When my husband and I bought this house [called then White Gates now Gowan Bank], Dorothy [1st wife of Gerald] had died and he was married to Vera who was quite a character! I remember the latter telling me she was quite miffed to have discovered she had been Gerald's 2nd choice of a new partner he having been rather interested in a red head who had turned him down! It was my understanding Gerald had contaced an agency in order to meet a suitable partner for a possible second marriage. Many years later [c1983] Gerald himself passed away and I attended his funeral at Charlton Kings [a parish in Cheltenham] where he was buried in the same grave as Dorothy [as you know]. Vera remained at Danum House for a little while before moving to Winchcombe and finally Cleeve Hill Residential Home where in turn she died, again whose funeral I attended at the Crematorium in Cheltenham .

Gerald had issue by neither wife. I was under the impression there were distant relatives in South Africa and I know for a fact Vera had always intended to post Huntriss history to said persons but I have no further knowledge of this but hope she remained true to her intention because she had inherited an incredible album containing much illuminating historical detail of the Huntriss name and many interesting artefacts. During the time I was in contact with Vera she had often handed the odd photograph to me knowing I enjoyed historical research [not necesarrily appertaining to Huntriss but that of my own family] -such memorabilia I have kept and when new neighbours recently moved into present day Field House I thought I should share my knowledge of the person who had built their house with them - hence this message which I thought you too might like to read.

I do have another photograph which is presumably that of Gerald's father and others of Gerald as a youth. I remember posting a school photograph of him to Marlborough College. He was woken early in the mornings and had to take a cold bath as was the custom at the time.