Albert Frederick Gear

Name	Albert Frederick Gear
Corps	Grenadier Guards 2nd Battalion, formerly Royal Fusiliers
Rank	Private
Service No.	31948
Date/Place of entry	April 1918 Caterham
Date of death	1944
Memorial/Grave

Albert Frederick Gear was a grandson of Albert Binley who was himself born in Cottingham in 1841 and moved to London in his early twenties. For more information on Albert’s branch of the Binley family see the page on Wilfred Philip Edward Binley. For more information on the extended Binley family see the page on Charles Stephen Binley.
Albert Frederick Gear was born in 1899, first child of Frederick Charles Gear and his wife Elizabeth Mary nee Binley, daughter of Albert and Eliza Binley. Frederick Charles was originally from Exeter and as a young man worked in a furniture store in Tottenham, Edmonton in north London. In 1911 the young couple were living with Albert and Eliza Binley, and Frederick was also employed by his father in law. Their only other known child was Nellie, born in 1903.
During the war the teenage Albert Frederick became a toolmaker for the Medical Supply Association in Grays Inn Road, Holborn. His enlistment papers specify ‘manufacturer of x-ray equipment.’  He is likely to have been living with his mother and sister as he did so for many years after the war ended. Albert Frederick entered his mother’s name as next of kin though there is no record of his father dying before 1918. Maybe his parents were living apart? The death of a Frederick Charles of the right age is recorded in Edmonton in1939.

Albert Frederick was called up in April 1918 and initially assigned to the Royal Fusiliers. He transferred into the Grenadier Guards and landed in Boulogne on 2nd November 1918. His regiment was sent to Harfleur. On 12th April 1919 he was transferred to the Reserves, Z class in preparation for demobilisation and in 31 March 1920 was demobbed. His demobilisation papers do not record any injury or disability.

Albert returned to live in Plevna Road in Tottenham with his mother and sister Nellie until the late 1930s. He and Nellie both married late, in 1936 and 1938 respectively and he died prematurely in 1944. The area around Plevna Road was badly damaged by enemy bombs during the Blitz and in the closing months of the war by V2 bombers. His mother Elizabeth Mary lived another fifteen years, dying in 1959.

Other Binley servicemen to whom he was related are Charles, George, John, Sidney and Percy Binley of Cottingham, John, George and Willis Panter of Cottingham, and Ernest Beeby descended from Cottingham; Percy Augustine, Bernard, Wilfred and George Frederick Binley, and William and Herbert Roddis, all descended from the Corby Binleys.