Frederick Ginn of Tottenham died 1904

If postage stamp collecting, market gardening and baptist missionaries are your thing, then this post is for you !

Fred Ginn here was born in 1836 and was the son of Charles Ginn of Harlow in my post of 16th November 2014 and nephew of Samuel Ginn who was killed in the Napoleonic Wars (see post of 26th January 2013).  Fred was an orphan early on and he was brought up by his childless uncle George Ginn of Tottenham (see post of 16th November 2014 ) and effectively was his son in all but name. Fred  was almost certainly named in memory of  his half-blood uncle Frederick Ginn who like Sam joined up and died in the army.

Fred took over his Uncle's nursery in Marsh Lane, Tottenham and was a successful market gardener.  Marsh Lane like Cheshunt from where I come is in the Lee Valley, and until relatively recently the Lee Valley had a major horticultural industry.

Fred married Elizabeth Giles at Newington in 1863 and they had seven children.  Fred died in 1904 and Elizabeth in 1910.

Of the children:

Frederick jnr - I started stamp collecting briefly at age eleven and it sadly left me cold, but Fred jnr here started collecting postage stamps as a boy and it became his life's work.  Fred was trading in stamps from his home in Tottenham in his mid teens, ie the 1870s.  When I was at University (long before my Ginn research) I bought a  Victorian book which I later realised had Fred mentioned in it - he was exhibting stamps, exhibitions being a 19th century obsession, at Bruce Castle in Tottenham (below)

On leaving school Fred entered the tea trade, but kept up stamps as a side line, trading from home, and he became so successful that for decades he ran a shop in The Strand in central London opposite the Gaiety Theatre.

The Royal Philatelic Society say that he had one of the finest collections of American stamps in the world.

Fred jnr married twice but only one child (Dorothy) is known though there were likely more.  Dorothy was a Baptism Missionary in Asia and married a Baptist Reverend at Lahore Cathedral in 1929.

Fred junior died in 1938

George Charles - you might have thought that one stamp collecting obsessive in the family was enough - but there were three.  George and his brother Ernie started the well known philatelic company Geo. C Ginn & Co, they were in Moorgate in London and traded internationally and traded international stamps.

George married twice and had four children.  Geo. C Ginn & Co had a strong presence in Canada and George's one son Ivor obviously had no interest in stamps and emigrated to Deep Creek, British Columbia in Canada in 1923, became a dairy farmer, married there and had no less than twelve children.  There are a huge number of descendants.  George died in 1945.

Ernest Burnett - Ernie was a  partner with his brother George in the family firm of Geo. C Ginn and Co.  In the philately world this was a well  known and respected company.  He married and had three children including a son Arthur who flew airships in World War 1 (Royal Navy) 

Arthur then joined the family firm.  Ernie died in 1948.

Elizabeth - was a teacher all of her life.  She never married and died in 1956.

Lucy - was a paid companion to a socialite (a little bit "Agatha Christie") never married and died in 1946.

Ada- married and had four children and died in 1953

John - became an ordained Baptist Minister and Missionary in India, obviously under the continuing influence of his late gt. uncle George Ginn of Tottenham who was also a Baptist.  He worked in India, returned to England with ill health and had connections with Frinton Free Church below.  He married but I have no idea whether there were issue.  He died in 1935.