Frederick Thorogood

Biography

Frederick George Thorogood was born on 3 February 1889, in Boreham, near Chelmsford, Essex. He joined the Grenadier Guards at Colchester on 6 January 1909, and gained his first medal, the Royal Victorian Medal in Bronze, at the Funeral of King Edward VII in 1910, when he was a Private in the King's Company of the 1st Battalion, Grenadier Guards. The following year he received the Coronation Medal of King George V. He served with the British Expeditionary Force in France from 4 October 1914 to 1 October 1918, during which period he was employed as an officer's servant. Thorogood left the Army on 5 January 1921, and spent the next 16 years 'in service'. On 1 April 1937, he joined the Royal Household, and here he served for the next 26 years, rising to become Lord Louie Mountbatten's valet, and retiring on 31 May 1963. Nice and Friendly was Chaplin's wedding present to the Mountbattens, who were in California for their honeymoon. It was shot at Pickfair, the home of Mary Pickford and Douglas Fairbanks. As Frederick Thorogood was Lord Mountbatten's valet (and was for many years) he was given a walk on part in the film.