Victor Wilkinson

(Trooper - Norfolk Yeomanry?)

Victor Wilkinson, the only son of John Wilkinson and his wife Edith Juliet (Downes), was born on 25th January 1898 at Thorpe St. Andrew, Norfolk. John and Edith were both born in Norwich and married on 5th August 1896 at Thorpe-next-Norwich where they continued to live for a few years. By 1901 they were running a grocer and draper business in Runhall, Norfolk. Unfortunately John died early in 1904 leaving Edith to raise Victor alone.

By 1911 Edith was living, on her own means, in Church Street, Wymondham with son Victor, a live-in domestic servant and a boarder by the name of John Scott Cavell, an insurance clerk, from Swardeston. John, or Jack, Cavell was, of course, Edith Cavell's younger brother. This connection to the Cavell family and thence to Swardeston, in 1911, leads to the presumption that Edith and Victor moved from Wymondham to Swardeston some time after 1911 to give this as their residence during WW1.

After the war Edith and Victor appear to have made their home at The Lindens in Horsford from where Victor set off to Australia on 6th September 1929 and returned almost a year later on 29th August 1930. Within weeks of his return from Australia Victor married Gladys Hunt, a Lincolnshire girl, in Boston, Lincolnshire. Records would appear to show that Victor and Gladys had at least one son and one daughter but they have not been confirmed at present. Edith Wilkinson die on 2nd January 1951 at The Lindens, Horsford at which time her son Victor was working as an AA patrolman. Victor died in 1979 and Gladys in 2002, both in the area of King's Lynn.

According to the Roll of Honour in the church Victor served in the Norfolk Yeomanry as a trouper during WW1. Extensive searches of the database at the Imperial War Museum, detailing every man that served and his unit, reveals several records for a Victor Wilkinson - unfortunately none even close to serving in the Norfolk Yeomanry. Similarly a search of every Norfolk Regiment, Territorial etc. reveals nobody that fits this man so, for the time being, his army career is a mystery!

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