CRANE, Richard
Richard Hector MacDonald Crane was born at the Red Lion, Chelmondiston, Ipswich on 23 September 1900, youngest of the seven children of John Crane (1863-1933), a licenced victualler, and his wife Alice née Wright, who married at Shotley, Suffolk in 1883. In 1901, Richard was a 1-year-old, living at Chelmondiston with his parents, 39-year-old John and 40-year-old Mary, with siblings Edith 19, Stanley John 16, Hilda Agnes 12, Ada Mary 10 and Jack 6, all born in Suffolk and by 1911, his father had taken the Ferry Inn, Bath Street, Ipswich. Richard was educated at the Ipswich Municipal Secondary School and served in the First World War in the London Regiment, 17th Battalion, 1st Dispersal Unit, at Purfleet, Surrey. He married at Willesden, London in 1937, Norah K. Bentley (6 March 1914-1942) and in 1939, a managing clerk in a grocery store, living at 267 Milkwood Road, Lambeth, London with his wife Norah but his wife died in 1942, aged 28, when he returned to Suffolk. An associate member of the Ipswich Art Club 1946-1952 and exhibited from 78 Looe Road, Felixstowe, Suffolk in 1947, a watercolour 'Field Flowers' but does not seem to have exhibited again. Richard Hector MacDonald Crane died at 25 Looe Road, Felixstowe on 27 May 1981