Person

My maternal great-grandfather, Theodor Fiedler, was one of the many German pork butchers who emigrated from the Hohenlohe region of South west Germany in the 19th century. He arrived in County Durham, aged 16, in 1885, as apprentice to another German butcher, a Mr. Heine and by 1914, he had established his own business in Shadforth. He was also married to Annie Lowes, from Newcastle and they had four children – my grandmother, Frieda, who was born in 1901, was the third child and second daughter.

As he had never been naturalised, Theo was arrested on the outbreak of war and sent to the Isle of Man. His property was also confiscated – and because the shop windows were broken and the family spat at in the street, Annie took the three younger children and went back to Newcastle. My grandmother also said that Otto Heine, the young son of Mr. Heine, was accidentally killed during an attack by other children – I’m not certain of the circumstances or the veracity of this story, though – it could have been a rumour.

The oldest son, Theo junior, had joined up ( under the name Fielder ) and went to the Isle of Man, in his Army uniform, to plead for the release of his father – without success. Eventually, Theo senior’s sisters, who worked for the German Red Cross, were able to exchange him for a sick British prisoner and he was repatriated; he spent the rest of the war years in his home town of Kunzelsau. After the war, he was refused permission to return – my grandmother wrote to the Home Office every week until, in 1927, they finally relented and he came home. By then, my grandmother was 26 and married, with a daughter of her own ( my mother, born in 1925 ) and a baby son.

Theo gradually built up his business again and was very well known and respected in Gateshead, where the family had settled. During WW2, he had to sign on at the local Police station but he experienced none of the prejudice and aggression of the previous war. He died in 1942, when a fall from a ‘bus in Gateshead caused head injuries.

Civil Parish: Shadforth

Armed force/civilian: Civilian

Residence: Front Street, Shadforth (1911 census)

Employment: Pork and Beef Butcher, Co-Operative Stores (1911 census)

Family: Wife: Annie Fiedler (nee Lowes)
Children: CH. W. Theodore Fiedler, Caroline A Fiedler, Frieda Fiedler, Ernest Louis Fiedler (1911 census)

Gender: Male

Contributed by Carol Hunt