Edwin Frank Drake

Story:
Edwin Frank Drake was born in Puddletown, Dorset, on 29 May 1899 and baptised there on 6 August, 1899, the son of Frank Drake and Matilda Jane Drake (nee Batten). He lived his early life in Puddletown until he enlisted in the Royal Navy on 29 May 1917 (his 18th birthday) becoming a Stoker Class 1 (Service No. K43020). He served on HMS Minotaur only until his discharge on 22 February 1919 and was awarded the Victory and British War Medals. He gave the Museum Hotel, Farnham, Dorset, as his address on the 1919 Absent Voters List but by the 1921 Census he was a resident in the Metropolitan Police Section House, Hackney, London, where he had become a Police Constable. He married Harriet Elizabeth Steel in Sutton Waldron, Shaftesbury, Dorset, on 4 November 1922 and by 1930 they were living at 60 Mare Street, Hackney, London, the same address also being registered on the 1939 Register where he was still with the Metropolitan Police. He had moved back to Cann Common, Shaftesbury, Dorset, by the time of his death in July 1965 and he was buried in Cann on 10 July 1965.