18430 Private Fred Hill

2nd Battalion, Coldstream Guards

Born in Westhampnet (a small village east of Chichester) on March 25 1881 Fred  was the son of George Hill, a policeman, and his wife, Harriett, née Stevens.  The family subsequently lived in various places, presumably where George’s police service took him.  At the time of the 1901 Census, Fred was living and working as a gardener in Saddlescombe, in the parish of Newtimber. He married May Dean, an Upper Beeding girl, in Henfield Parish Church on December 21 1901. The couple had three children: Fred, who was born in Pulborough on November 21 1904; Mabel, who was born there on May 17 1909; and Frank who was born in Steyning District on March 31 1913. The 1911 Census shows the family living in Castletown, Upper Beeding, so that may be where Frank was actually born. Fred worked as a gardener at a nearby house called ‘The Knells’, in Henfield Road, Upper Beeding.

 

As a married man with three children Fred did not initially volunteer for army service, but with conscription looking likely to be inevitable in 1916, he attested for military service under Lord Derby’s recruitment scheme on November 12 1915 in Hove,  giving Castletown as his home address and his occupation as a gardener. He then waited to be called up - that took effect in June 1916 and Fred joined the Coldstream Guards. After several months of training and service in the United Kingdom he joined the 2nd Battalion of the regiment in France on January 5 1917.

 Fred was killed in action on August 1 1917, the second day of the Third Battle of Ypres (more usually known as Passchendaele), when his battalion advanced across the Yser canal, securing the crossing of the Steenbeck. Whilst the battalion achieved its objectives, its losses that day were heavy: 4 officers killed, 4 wounded and 175 other ranks, including Fred, killed, wounded, or missing in action. He has no known grave and is, therefore, commemorated on panel 11 of the Menin Gate Memorial (to the missing) in Ypres (now known as Ieper), West-Vlaanderen, Belgium. He is also remembered on Upper Beeding War Memorial. Not having gone overseas until 1917 Fred was awarded the British War Medal and Victory Medal.

May always resented the loss of her husband and had to take in washing and lodgers to make ends meet. Fred was still a schoolboy when his father was killed and he had to take a school-leaving exam to show that he could read and write before being allowed to leave school and help support the family by starting work as a boy porter on Bramber Station. When he was old enough, he made a frame for the plaque his mother had received. A directory of 1936 shows that May Hill was still living at 6 Castletown.

Patricia Nightingale