Frederick Vincent

Born: 7 January 1879

Died: 19 November 1917

Rank and Regiment: Gunner 130908 in the 1st Heavy Battery of the Royal Garrison Artillery

Resting Place: Baghdad (North Gate) War Cemetery, Iraq - Plot III. L. 9.

Memorial: St. Peter’s, Yaxham, United Kingdom

Frederick was born in Whinburgh on 7 January 1879 to Thomas, a farmer, and Anna Vincent (nee Lewell). He was baptised in the village on 9 February 1879.

The family was evidently prosperous; in the 1891 Census for Shop Street, Whinburgh (next to the former Three Horseshoes public house) we find Frederick and six brothers and two sisters, two resident servants and a governess.

By 1911, he had moved to London and was living in Lambeth, at what appears to have been a fairly high-class lodging-house. He was described as a millinery manufacturer and employer, and appears to have been employing the lodging-house keepers’ daughter Blanche Mayle as his manager.

He married Kathleen Barnard at Coulsdon in 1916. Kathleen appears in the 1911 Census described as a millinery saleswoman.

His military records do not survive but he appears to have enlisted in Clapham. He was killed in action in Iraq on 19 November 1917. He is buried at Baghdad (North Gate) War Cemetery. The inscription on his tomb reads:

SO FAR BUT YET SO NEAR TO THOSE BY WHOM REMEMBERED HERE

His effects amounting to £9 8s 9d, together with a War Gratuity of £3, were paid out to his widow Kathleen. In addition, he had a reasonably substantial estate valued at £1507 (about £60,000 in today’s money) as well as addresses in both Purley, Surrey and Golden Lane, London. Kathleen does not appear to have remarried, and appears in the 1939 Register described as “of private means”.

Frederick is not included on the War Memorial at Whinburgh, but is commemorated on the War Memorial at Yaxham where his younger brother Albert lived.

At least two of his brothers, Edward (1877-1934) and Lacey (b. 1886) served in the Army Service Corps during the Great War and survived.

Baghdad (North Gate) War Cemetery, Iraq