Harriet Fread (1859 – 1940)

Harriet Fread was born on 7 February 1859 in Frittenden, Kent and was the wife of Charles Fread. She was the only daughter of Job Andrews, an agricultural labourer, and his wife Sarah Anne (née Tomsett.) Harriet married Charles in Cranbrook in 1881, and by 1891, the couple were living with their four children in Hastings. Sadly, life for Harriet took a turn for the worse when she was admitted to the Sussex County Asylum in 1892 for an unspecified reason and still resident there at the time of the 1921 census. Harriet’s daughter Alice married Jack Swift, the licensee of the Royal Oak pub in Wrotham Heath, in 1927 after her first husband died in 1919. Around 1939, Harriet went to stay with her daughter and son-in-law, where she was working in the kitchen preparing sandwiches when an enemy bomb crashed through the roof and exploded on 15 October 1940. Injured, Harriet was taken by ambulance to the Preston Hall Emergency Hospital in Aylesford, where she died the same day. She was buried in Platt Churchyard four days later.