Florrie Baldwin

Florrie Baldwin
Birth:	31 March 1896 Hunslet, Leeds, UK
Death:	8 May 2010 Leeds, UK
Age:	114 years, 38 days
Country:	UK
Validated

Florence Emily "Florrie" Baldwin (née Davies; 31 March 1896 – 8 May 2010) was a British supercentenarian who, at the time of her death, was the oldest living person in the United Kingdom and Europe and the second oldest living person in the world.

Biography

Born Florence Emily Davies in the Hunslet district of Leeds, she was the daughter of Methuselah Davies (1861–1946) from Dowlais, Wales and Florence Susannah Bird (1863–1926) from Aylsham, Norfolk. She remembered the Second Boer War|Boer War and, at the age of four, seeing Queen Victoria when she visited Leeds. In 1920, she married painter and decorator Clifford Baldwin and moved to |Woodhouse. After his death in 1973, Baldwin lived alone until she was 105, still being able to put up curtains and clean windows. She then moved to Radcliffe Gardens, a nursing home in Leeds.

She credited her longevity to eating a fried egg sandwich every day. However doctors reputedly thought it could be due to her job as a clerk at an engineering firm for fifty years, which she retired from at the age of 75. The company was based on top a steep hill in Woodhouse, Leeds. "She would walk up that hill, come home at lunchtime and then back up it" commented a grandson. Baldwin's daughter believes her mother's longevity was due to no drinking, no smoking and hard work. Baldwin spent time in hospital in her 70s due to cataracts.

Following the death of Italian woman Lucia Lauria on 28 June 2009, Baldwin became the oldest living person in Europe. Baldwin became one of the 100 verified oldest women ever on 14 October 2009 and one of the 70 verified oldest people ever on 22 April 2010. Baldwin became the second oldest living person from the death of Japanese Kama Chinen on 2 May 2010, until her death six days later. Baldwin was in good health until the age of 111, when she began developing short-term memory loss which progressed into dementia and had very few memories of the past in the last months of her life.

References

United Kingdom's Oldest Living Person Titleholders (V • E)

Frederick Stabbins • Jane Lister • Martha Truelove • Ann Sharp • Jane Raby • Frances Smith • William Walker • Ann Russell • Eliza Roff • Ellen Palmer • Rachel MacArthur • Rachel Swain • Mary Davey • Thomas Pope • John Francklow • Rebecca Lees • Sarah Fitt • Elizabeth Sellwood • Matilda Coppins • Elizabeth Whitehead • Emma Rooke • Margaret Lunn • Sarah Humphrey • Caroline Beale • Fanny Hopkins • Elizabeth Etheridge • Sophia Wellstead • Rhoda Harris • Emma Weeks • Edith Grellier • Mary Worthington • Jane Stoneman • Ellen Dart • Elizabeth Kensley • Hannah Smith • John Mosley Turner • Ada Roe • Alice Stevenson • Elizabeth Watkins • Frederick Butterfield • Rose Heeley • Agnes Helyar • James Harrow • Sarah Morgan • Lilias Williams • Florence Pannell • Jeanetta Thomas • Alice Brewster • Anna Eliza Williams • Kate Begbie • Charlotte Hughes • Daisy Adams • Rebecca Hewison • Annie Scott • Rachel Wieselberg • Lucy Askew • Annie Jennings • Eva Morris • Amy Hulmes • Nellie Bradley • Gladys Hawley • Lucy d'Abreu • Judy Ingamells • Emmeline Brice • Annie Knight • Ada Mason • Florrie Baldwin • Eunice Bowman • Annie Turnbull • Elsie Steele • Margaret Fish • Violet Wood • Grace A Jones • Ethel Lang • Gladys Hooper • Bessie Camm • Olive Boar • Grace C Jones • Gwen Payne • Hilda Clulow • Bob Weighton • Joan Hocquard • Lilian Priest • Gertrude Kingston • Mollie Walker • Ethel Caterham