Personal
Freshfield married Augusta Charlotte Ritchie (1847–1911) on 27 November 1869. She was the daughter of the Hon W Ritchie Advocate General of Calcutta and the sister of Sir Richmond Ritchie They had four daughters and a son Henry Douglas Freshfield who died aged fourteen in 1891. The tragic family loss was turned into a memorial gift for the people of Forest Row in the form of a building to be used as a parochial hall and institute. The first Freshfield Hall was very short-lived, for it was burnt down on 14 February 1895, the day after the funeral of Henry Freshfield. Douglas Freshfield and his mother wasted no time in having it rebuilt and it reopened on 17 November 1895. At the reopening Freshfield expressed the wishes of his mother and himself when he hoped the hall would be used by all classes of parishioners, and that it would keep alive the memory of its original founder.
Freshfield became a friend of Violet Needham a near neighbour at Forest Row. Cultivated and cultured as well as adventurous, Freshfield and Charles Needham have been seen in many Violet Needham heroes.
Freshfield died at Wych Cross Place, Forest Row, Sussex.
Read more about this topic: Douglas Freshfield
Famous quotes containing the word personal:
“The personal touch between the people and the man to whom they temporarily delegated power of course conduces to a better understanding between them. Moreover, I ought not to omit to mention as a useful result of my journeying that I am to visit a great many expositions and fairs, and that the curiosity to see the President will certainly increase the box receipts and tend to rescue many commendable enterprises from financial disaster.”
—William Howard Taft (1857–1930)
“Like their personal lives, women’s history is fragmented, interrupted; a shadow history of human beings whose existence has been shaped by the efforts and the demands of others.”
—Elizabeth Janeway (b. 1913)
“The ingrained idea that, because there is no king and they despise titles, the Americans are a free people is pathetically untrue.... There is a perpetual interference with personal liberty over there that would not be tolerated in England for a week.”
—Margot Asquith (1864–1945)