LONDON, April 19: Britain’s oldest man, born in an era when most people thought the car was a noisy invention that would never catch on, has died aged 109, staff at his care home said on Friday.

Fred Moore was born on Nov 21, 1892, two weeks before the man who would later become Spanish dictator General Franco and nine years before the end of the Victorian era.

He served in World War I, survived two wives and at the age of 107 travelled to London to win the accolade of Britain’s oldest learner.

Allan Herring, manager of the residential care home where Moore died on Sunday at New Milton, southern England, said he had a remarkable memory.

“He didn’t come in to the home until he was 106,” Herring said. “He comes from a family of long livers, it’s clearly in the genes.”

When he was 100 he was given free tuition by the local council for the rest of his life, and attended weekly art classes for all but the last 18 months of the past quarter of a century.

Moore is survived by a sister, 92, and a daughter.

A spokesman for the Guinness Book of World Records confirmed Moore had been the oldest man in Britain and that it was not clear at this point who the new holder would be.—AFP