TILLEY
with roots in Somerset, England
family
the
Arthur George Tilley
Arthur George was born in Compton Bishop, Somerset, on 15 October 1902 to Arthur Herbert Tilley (1873-1926) and Edith Anna Look (1876-1926). He was one of eleven children: Frances Winifred, Thomas Edward, Geoffrey Wilfred John (Jack), Edith Mary (Mollie), Dorothy Ruth, Anna Joan, Herbert Norton, Philip Lewis, Ella Naomi and Muriel Grace.
He emigrated to Africa in 1929 – destination Nairobi, where he was an insurance agent for the Ocean Accident Insurance Company. Arthur then moved to Cape Town where he met and married Freda Dudley Smith in 1931. He divorced shortly after that and moved to Rhodesia in 1935 and married Olive Mary Ella Michell in 1937. The couple's three children – Jeanne (1940), Brian (1943) and Chereth (1946) – were born and educated there. After Zimbabwe Independence, they emigrated to South Africa in 1969 to St Michael's On Sea, on the south coast of Natal and then moved to live out their lives in Plettenberg Bay on the Eastern Cape coast.
Arthur died on 15 July 1987 in Knysna and Olive on 10 June 2004 in Port Elizabeth. Both are buried in Plettenberg Bay's Anglican garden of Remembrance.
Arthur and Olive Mary Ella Michell were married in 1937 in Salisbury, Southern Rhodesia.
Arthur with Jeanne, Brian and Chereth at their home in Clark Road, Bulawayo, in 1947.
Arthur in pith helmet outside the Savoy, Nairobi, in 1929 – he sailed to Africa in this year.
1936 – just before his marriage to Olive Michell in 1937.
An early photo, probably dated 1918-20.
Arthur and Olive Tilley on holiday at Fish Hoek Beach near Cape Town in 1954.