Frederic William's Story.
Fred was born in 1887 in Manchester and lived at 1 Beech Villa, Stockport Road, Timperley. His father was also a Fred, his Mum Clara and initially lived with his younger sister, grand mother and aunt. By 1901 his Grandmother had gone, presumably dead but he had another younger sibling. He attended Manchester Grammar School. His father was a partner in the firm of Boylan, Platt and Bower and he dies in 1906 aged 48.In 1911, aged 24, he was living at 'Southside' on Stockport Road (No. 84?), with his mother, sister, brother (Phillip) and Sister-in-Law. He was a Mechanical Draughtman / Flour Mill Engineer and was employed by Mssrs Henry Simon Ltd of Mount Street, Manchester. He enlisted in September 1914 in the Public Schools Batallion and his unit was sent to France on November 14th 1915. He was commissioned in December 1916 and gazetted Captain in September 1917. He had served at the front for 27 months and had taken part in much of the heavy fighting at the time of his death on March 8th 1918. On February 15th 1918, Fred had been transferred to the 13th Batallion on the disbandonment of the 20th Batallion.
The war diary of the 13th Batallion reads as follows...
'At 0100hrs a message was received that the enemy intended to attack during the night to capture high ground North-West of Gheluvent. Companies warned and prepared. Counter preparation fired at dawn without reply. At 0630hrs, hostile artillery commenced shelling front and support trenches with 77 and 105mm on both sides of the Menin Road. The shelling became very fierce after 0930hrs and continued with a short break between 1300 and 1330hrs until 1700hrs.
Orders were sent to the reserve company to move up at 1830hrs from Zillebeke. At 1745hrs SOS was sent by the batallion on the left, artillery answered on whole sector within two minutes. No attack developed on batallion front , but enemy shelling badly damaged No.3 company. Message received from them at 1830hrs - "Please send as many stretcher bearers as possible. Only a few men left to carry on and no officers fit to carry on. Two officers killed and two wounded. Please send reinforcements as soon as possible".
A.Clarke, Sergeant in No.3 Company sent forward immediately and the platoons of No.4 Company in Clapham Junction under 2nd Lieutenant H.J Rowlands followed shortly. The latter was able to clear up the situation and reported to Batallion headquarters that the front line was intact, shortly after the arrival of Captain P.E Lewis and the remainder of No. 4 Company'.