E. Feder
Service no. 354910
Private, London Regiment, 7th Battalion
Also London Regiment, posted to 1st/19th Battalion
Killed in action, aged about 28, on 1 September 1918
Born in Soho, London; lived in Brixton
Remembered at Vis-en-Artois Memorial, France and at the war shrine at St Michael’s Church, Stockwell Park Road, London SW9 0DA
See We Were There Too, which gives his address as 15 Lorne Road and his synagogue as Borough New Synagogue in Heygate Street (Vowler Street), Walworth Road, London SE17.
In 1912 Hettie Bicknell (1893-1985) and Manny Feder had a daughter, Gladis Hettie (d. 2018), followed in 1913 by Deborah Frances (d. 1998). Hettie and Manny married in 1914 in Islington. Hettie gave birth to a third daughter, Peggy G. Christey (d. 1934) in 1926. The Brixton and Kennington electoral rolls to 1936 record Hettie Feder as living at 15 Lorn Road with George Christey (d. 1962), after which they appear to have married and moved to Downton Avenue in Streatham.
Information from the censuses
The 1911 Census has a match for a “Manny Feder”, born around 1890, living at that time at 58 Wardour Street, in the borough of Westminster, with his parents, Wolf Feder, 58, a clothes dealer who emigrated from Russia, and Dina Feder (née Herz), 44, who emigrated from “Austria” (then the Austro-Hungarian Empire). Two of their 5 children survived: Manny Feder, 21, and his brother David Feder, 18, both born in west London, assisted in the family business. The family lived in 3 rooms (including kitchen).
Ten years earlier, in 1901, they were living at the same address. The census describes the Feder parents as “naturalised British subjects”.
The 1891 census clarifies the family’s origins, giving Littin, Russia as Wolf’s birthplace and Tardiff, Austria, as Dina’s (she is listed as Dora). David is listed as Esidorf. Sara Prolen, a married 35-year-old domestic servant born in Poland, lived with the family, who were then resident at 33 St James Residences, Little Pulteney Street, Westminster.
Notes
(1) Birth years vary between the censuses, with Manny listed variously as 1890 and 1889. Haziness about Western-style years and varying first names were normal for Jewish families at this time.
(2) Littin (various spellings), Russia, was a Jewish shtetl (village), now in Ukraine. I have been unable to identify Tardiff.
Manny’s brother David served as a driver in the Royal Field Artillery and survived the war. In 1919 he gave his address as 117 Lambeth Walk, S.E.
Information from Wolf Feder’s certification of naturalisation (23 January 1896)
Wolf Feder swore that he was a subject of Russia, born at Taurogen (Tauragė [Lithuanian], Tovrik [Yiddish], Tauroggen [German], Taurogen [Russian], now in Lithuania), the son of Isaac and Janie Feder, that he was a clothier, married with two children, “Many” aged 6 and “Davis” aged 2.
