DELF, Frank
Frank Erle Delf was born at 118 Middlegate Street, Great Yarmouth, Norfolk on 11 January 1898, youngest son of Frederick Riches Delf (1848-16 October 1923), a grocer who was also an amateur artist, and his wife Elizabeth Louise née Leggett (1855-1935), who married at Great Yarmouth in 1875. Frank was a marine engineer in the Merchant Navy and served as a motor mechanic in the Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve 1914-1919. After his duties during the First World War, he had a motor engineering company at Clarence Road, Great Yarmouth but gave this business up in 1924 and returned to his career in the Merchant Navy until his retirement when he lived at Worlingham, Suffolk. A keen artist and a member of both the Great Yarmouth & District Society of Artists and the Southwold Art Circle and in 1969, founded the Beccles Society of Artists. Frank was also a well-known naturalist being a President of the Yarmouth Naturalist Society for 13 years and had an expert knowledge of windmills and round-towered churches. He married at St Nicholas Church, Great Yarmouth in October 1923, Beatrice Lawn (9 September 1898-1993), youngest daughter of Elfred Edward Lawn of Great Yarmouth, and in 1939 was living at 151 Lichfield Road, Great Yarmouth, Norfolk and they had a son Robin John Delf (1930 - 2021). Frank Erle Delf died at Great Yarmouth in June 1973.