Alfred Hackman

Alfred Howard Hackman (b. 30th December 1902 - d. 13th May 1986) was the father to Roger Hackman, who was a resident of North Grove from 1970 to his death.

Alfred only ever visited North Grove a handful of times, most of them to visit his son Roger.

Childhood and Marriage
Alfred grew up in London in a single-parent family. He never knew his father and due to it just being his mother and him, the community where he lived shunned him and his mother. He grew up with his mother having to work long, hard hours to be able to provide for them both, which became even harder when his mother was struck with the Spanish Flu. The doctor's bills were expensive and when she died of it, Alfred was left alone in the world at just 16 years of age.

At this point, he came against fight or flight and he fought.

He bought his own market stall selling soaps and other toiletries as he had found there was not many stalls that sold them when he had a look around. This made him very popular with the housewives and within five years he had made up enough money to buy a shop on Oxford Street.

When he went to a meeting in 1924, he was shocked to find a woman there. And a beautiful one at that. He knew that he could not pause his business moving forward to meet more often with this girl, who he found out was named April. So, he started to pretend he wasn't sure about buying the shop so they could meet more often and once she agreed to go on a date with him, he bought it.

Over a series of dates, Alfred fell in love with April Hackman. And in 1926 they married.

Becoming A Millionaire and Fatherhood
Although April was reluctant to get back into working at a business, she was convinced by Alfred to work the odd jobs. The business changed it's name to Oxford Street Soaps when it moved its main shop to Oxford Street due to the good stigma surrounding the street name.

In 1927, April told Alfred that they were expecting a baby while they were touring the country to help promote their business and in early 1928, they both had a baby boy named Roger in North Grove General Hospital. However, giving birth proved to be a terrible strain on April who had nearly died and they both decided that this would be their only child.

With that in mind, the couple with their baby returned to London.

Alfred decided to bring in some investors into the company so that they could afford the abundance of orders they noted when they went on their tour and to also afford to put some advertisements in the local and national newspapers.

With the high order of soaps and other toiletries, Alfred bought a factory in Devon to make everything and so they could create more and with all these innovations and help brought into the company, Oxford Street Soaps became one of the top fifty most successful companies in 1939, just before the war.

During the war, Alfred went away to war in the Navy but tragedy struck when his boat was bombed and he broke both of his legs and just about survived and ended his military career in 1940.

Coming back, he went back to heading the company and it continued on having success after success and by 1959, the company's fortieth year, Alfred was a millionaire.

Retirement and Death
In 1965, Alfred was convinced by April to retire, they both knew that son Roger was capable of taking over the company. When the couple were deciding on where to retire to, Alfred convinced April to retire to Devon so he could still check in on the factory to see how it was doing.

His son, wanting to see where he was born went to North Grove and he soon fell in love with the place and decided to run the company from Manchester instead of London which caused a few people to waver in indecision but the move proved to be a good one and the company carried on from strength to strength.

In 1986, after more than two decades of living in peace and travelling the world with April, Alfred died watching the sunset on 13th May from a water infection.

Family
Mother: Unknown Name

Father: Unknown Name

Wife: April Hackman (1926 - 1986; his death)

Child: Roger Hackman

Daughters-In-Law: Grandchild: John Hackman
 * Missy Hackman
 * May Porter

Great-Grandchild: Dennis Hackman