The Forum’s guest speaker on the 5th of April was Anne Batchelor, a retired schoolteacher from Seacroft. Anne’s hobby since retirement has been historical research and she described to the Forum the story of her research which commenced with an enquiry about her great-grandfather called George Batchelor who is buried in a graveyard in York.
An enquiry into Mr. Batchelor was confused with another man of the same name buried in the same graveyard in the same year (1906) as Anne’s ancestor. Anne became interested in this second person who had been a soldier in the 18th Hussars and won the DCM medal in the Boer War, hence the title of her talk ‘’My Gallant Hussar’’.
She established a connection for him to Hemel Hempstead and a letter in the local paper resulted in a phone call from a lady in Southampton and enabled Anne to trace Mr. Batchelor’s descendants to California and, although she was unable to visit them, she had many telephone conversations with George’s son until his death at a very old age.
During a stay in hospital Anne wrote a book about her research which sold three thousand copies although it is now out of print.
Mike Earle thanked Anne for an absolutely fascinating talk well told.
After the Forum’s Annual General Meeting on the 12th of April our meetings recommence on the 13th of September.