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View Requests| Info on Harry Alefounder - posted by Ted Frith | I live in Selsdon, South Croydon and have been engaged for some years in writing a history of our suburb, which was developed by Costains in 1925. We have an active residents' association that will be 80 years old in January.
We had a particularly active Chairman in the years just before the War -- H.E.R. (Harry) Alefounder, who by profession was a trade union official for middle grade postal workers, and edited a fortnightly magazine 'Supervising'.
As you can probably guess he was a strong Labour supporter and his wife was a Croydon J. P. The residents' association was strictly non-political and he never became actively involved with the local Labour party.
During the War he acted as Secretary for a couple of years. I have had some difficulty in finding a photograph of him -- even a visit to the TUC archives was unsuccessful.
However, in 1944 he retired to Worthing, where he died about 1967 -- a short obituary did appear in your local paper, but it didn't add much to what I already knew. His widow died some years later but they had no children.
A couple of months ago I visited the local studies at Worthing Library and they were able to track down a photo -- he stood unsuccessfully as a Labour candidate in the 1946 municipal elections. But they didn't appear to have anything else about him.
Besides being involved with the local Labour party he was also,
I believe, involved in a local residents' association. He was a short, balding man with glasses. Also rather an unusual surname.
I would enquire as to whether anyone has ever come across references to him, please. Any information would be most welcome.
Ted Frith
| | Posted by - Ted Frith |
| Responses | Harry Alefounder
05/04/2006
23:10:15
By alefounder | I have been running an Alefounder genealogical web site for the past
few years, and this is what I have to say there about Harry Alefounder:
Henry Edward Rushbrook Alefounder, b 1882
Listed as a Civil Service Clerk in the 1901 census: his work
appears to have been with the Post Office. He is mentioned in the
Times in 1924 and in various reports until 1939 as General
Secretary of the Post Office Controlling Officers' Association and
in 1931, 1932 and 1938 as representing the Federation of Post
Office Supervising Officers. For the latter, he compiled The
Supervising Officer's Handbook 1937, and as such is the only
Alefounder to have an entry in the British Museum Catalogue of
Printed Books.
According to reports in the Times, his wife, Maud, was appointed
as a magistrate in Croydon on 14th September 1926 and was chairman
of the magistrates in 1937 when Walter Saemann, a German from
Nurnberg, was convicted of attempting to defraud the Customs of
the duty due on a camera.
Short notes about him can be found in The Labour Who's Who for 1924
and 1927, and about his wife in Hutchinson's Woman's Who's Who for
1934.
I have recently been able to place him on a family tree - he turns out
to be distantly related to myself. I would very interested in knowing
what the obituary had to say about him, and where the photo can be
seen. I have found no reference to him post 1939 other than his death
registration (3rd quarter 1966, in Worthing, as you say). A Maud Emily
Alefounder died in 1998 in Crawley, West Sussex: I do not know that
she was his wife, but she may well have been. I think this death is
linked to a report in The Enfield and Haringey Independent concerning
a Maude Alefounder of Edmonton, who died from burns after a cake she
was cooking caught fire, 23 March 1998.
Peter Alefounder. |
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