I just love this photograph is of my Great Grandfather and his family.
Frederick Richard James Gee, (FRJ), his wife Ethel Mary Gee (Née Leonard) and their three children. Their son also called Frederick and two daughters, Rose and Gwendoline. Rose is my Grandmother and the elder of the two girls.
I don't have an exact date for the image but Rose looks to be about 10 so that would make the image around 1916
From the mid 1800's Swindon was a railway town after Brunel's Great Western Railway established a base there and the Gee family were no strangers to the GWR.
Frederick started work at the age of 14 in 1892 working at his local station, Shrivenham. A short while later he moved to work on the Wellington & Market Drayton Line at Crudgington, a small station North East of Wellington. Wellington is now part of Telford in Shropshire.
In 1898, six years after starting work at the GWR at Shrivenham, he moved to London and worked as a Guard on the Underground, returning a few years later to work at Swindon Junction (now the main railway station). He worked there as a Guard, was promoted to Traffic Inspector in 1933 and finally after 50 years unblemished service to the Great Western Railway he retired in 1942.
Sadly his retirement was short lived as he died in 1944.
