Pte 25412 Frederick Holt

• Age: 25
• From: Skelmersdale, Lancs
• Regiment: The King's (Liverpool Regiment) 18th Btn
• K.I.A Thursday 10th October 1918
• Commemorated at: Le Cateau Mil Cem
  Panel Ref: II.C.11

Frederick Holt was born in 1893 in Skelmersdale and was the son of James and his wife Margaret (nee Smith), of 55 High St, Skelmersdale, Lancashire. His father was from Wigan, and his mother born in Wrightington or Shevington (censuses differ), both northwest of Wigan. James Holt and Margaret Smith married in 1888 and had nine children, all born in Skelmersdale.   

Their first son, also called Frederick, was born in 1889 but died at the age of 4 and a half in May 1893 (Fred was born later that year and given his deceased brother’s name). Fred had an older sister Sarah Alice, and older brother Thomas, who died at age 3, and younger siblings John James, Andrew Thomas, Mary Ruth, Oswald, and Margaret Ivy. 

In 1901 his parents and five children are lodging with grandparents William and Sarah Smith, at 55 High Street, Skelmersdale. His father is a general (daily) labourer, Fred is 7. 

They are at the same address in 1911, listed as boarders.  Grandmother Sarah Smith, 82, is head of household, a grocer working on her own account at home. His father, 46, and Frederick, 17, are employed at the White Moss Colliery as miners/hewers, his mother is 43.  Sarah Alice, 20, is a weaver in a cotton mill, John is 15, a labourer in a mineral water works, and Andrew, 11, Mary, 9, Oswald, 7, and Margaret, 5, are at school. 

He enlisted in Southport in January 1915 joining the 14th Battalion of The King’s Liverpool Regiment, as Private 25412.  The 14th (Service) battalion was raised at Seaforth in October 1914, and trained at Eastbourne and Seaford.  They shipped to France on 05th September 1915, disembarking at Boulogne. However, no 1914-1915 Star has been found for Fred.  

In October 1915 they entrained for Marseilles and embarked for Salonika on the 27th October 1915. In 1916 the battalion fought in the Battles of Horseshoe Hill and Machukovo. Fred was wounded in action during this campaign, his name (L/Cpl) appearing in the list of Wounded in the Liverpool Post & Mercury on 03rd November 1916. 

In 1917 they were in action during the Battles of Doiran. The 14th Kings left the Balkans, embarking at Itea in Greece to Taranto in the heel of Italy, and arrived in France in June 1918. In August the 14th Battalion were amalgamated with the 18th Battalion K.L.R., becoming the 18th (Lancashire Hussars Yeomanry), The King’s Liverpool Regiment. 

On 07th October 1918 the 18th Battalion arrives at the Hindenburg Line and pursues the retreating German army. The battalion War Diary records -  

10th October 1918 - 

At 0230 hours the battalion moved forward to a position near RUEMONT, and attacked towards LE CATEAU at 0510.  Very little opposition was met with at the start but later considerable M.G. fire was encountered. …  Our right company was not in touch with the flank, and the troops on the right appeared to be held up by M.G. fire from the railway embankment … A short length of trench on the high ground immediately E. of LE CATEAU was also reported to be held by the enemy.  At 0848 the Centre Coy reached K.33.b and pushed a platoon into the N. W. outskirts of LE CATEAU.  The right company was temporarily held up by MG and sniper fire, but appeared to be almost in the town itself.  Hostile M.G. fire was reported from the direction of Q.10. … Houses in K.28.a were reported to be strongly held by the Bosche, and a patrol was sent out to investigate and deal with them. … During the advance on LE CATEAU considerable difficulty was experienced, owing to a “whizz bang” battery being able to fire over open sights at the troops as they moved up the rise and along a slight valley. 

Total Casualties from 7th to 13th October:

Killed – 2 Officers, 18 O.R.

Wounded – 6 Officers, 111 O.R.

Died of Wounds – 1 O.R.

Wounded and Missing – 1 Officer, 20 O.R.

Fred was one of those other rans killed in action on the 10^th October 1918 ,aged 25, during the hundred days offensive which ended the First World War (8^th August-11^th November 1918). 

He now rests at Le Cateau Military Cemetery, France. The inscription on his headstone reads:

“HIS DUTY NOBLY DONE”

Le Cateau-Cambrésis and the country to the west of it was the scene of a battle fought by the British II Corps on 26 August 1914 against a greatly superior German force. The town remained in German hands from that date until the evening of 10 October 1918, when it was rushed by the 5th Connaught Rangers and finally cleared a week later. During the war Le Cateau had been a German railhead and the site of an important hospital centre. The military cemetery was laid out by the Germans in February 1916 with separate plots for the Commonwealth and German dead. It contains the graves of over 5,000 German soldiers, many of whom were buried during the occupation, the rest being brought in from other German cemeteries after the Armistice. A separate plot contains the graves of 34 Russian prisoners of war who died in captivity. The Commonwealth plot is the site of almost 700 graves and commemorations of the First World War. The majority of the graves in Plots I, III, IV and V are those of British dead buried by the Germans, mainly from the battleground of 1914; Plot II contains entirely graves of October and November 1918, eight of which were brought in after the Armistice.

His death was reported in the Ormskirk Advertiser on 7th November 1918:

“Skelmersdale Yeoman Killed - News was received on Saturday last by Mrs. Holt of High Street, Skelmersdale, that her son, Lance Corpl. Fred Holt, Lancashire Hussars Yeomanry, has been killed in France.  Lance Corpl. Holt joined up in January, 1915, and after training was drafted to Salonica with the K.L.R. where he served, amongst those early trying circumstances, for two years and nine months, during which period he was wounded once, in hand and knee, suffered with malaria three times and twice with dysentery. He was for three months an inmate of the 42nd General Hospital, Malta, and although holding medical certificates stating he was not fit for further active service, he preferred to “see the thing through” so rejoined his regiment.  Shortly after he was transferred to France, from which place he obtained 14 days leave.  He had been back in France only six weeks when he was killed on October 14th [sic].  Before joining the army he was employed at the White Moss Collieries. He was a prominent member of the Primitive Methodist Chapel in his native town, by which community he will be greatly missed.” 

His mother Margaret received Fred’s Army effects and a War Gratuity of £17-10s. 

In 1939 his mother, 72, occupation grocer, is still at 55 High Street with Oswald and Margaret Ivy and married daughter Mary, her husband and daughter.  His father, 74, now a retired collier, is found at 36 Witham Road, Skelmersdale with married son John and his family. 

His father appears to have died in 1941.  His mother lived at 55 High Street until her death in 1949, aged 81. 

Fred is also commemorated on the Skelmersdale War Memorial, Garden of remembrance, Sandy Lane, Skelmersdale,WN8 8JX, and on the War Memorial located in St Paul’s Church, Church Road, Skelmersdale.

He is also commemorated on the family gravestone in St. Paul’s Churchyard, Skelmersdale, with his brothers Frederick and Thomas and grandmother Sarah Smith: 

IN LOVING MEMORY OF

ALSO LANCE CPL. FREDERICK, SON

OF THE ABOVE WHO WAS KILLED IN ACTION

OCT 10TH 1918, AGED 25 YEARS

GREATER LOVE HATH NO MAN THAN THIS,

THAT A MAN LAY DOWN HIS LIFE FOR HIS FRIENDS

We currently have no further information on Frederick Holt, If you have or know someone who may be able to add to the history of this soldier, please contact us.