L/Cpl 52177 Fred Meakin

• Age: 27
• From: Manchester
• Regiment: The King's (Liverpool Regiment) 19th Btn
• K.I.A Thursday 16th November 1916
• Commemorated at: Bienvillers Mill Cem
  Panel Ref: V.D.5

Fred Meakin was born in the March quarter of 1889 in Manchester the son of Robert Meakin and his wife and Mary (nee Keates). His parents married 1878 in Leek.

On 1891 Census he is aged 2 living at 41 Pool End, Leek, Staffs.

On 1901 Census he is aged 12 living at 863 Stockport Rd, Manchester.

His father died in 1906.

Fred was the husband of Lilian Meakin (nee Bennett), of 8 Agnes St, Levenshulme, Manchester, who had married in 1910.

Prior to the outbreak of the war he had been employed by Manchester Corporation Tramways.

The 1911 Census shows Fred living with his mother and his sister at 29 Randolph St, Levenshulme. His mother Mary is aged 60, born 1851 in Staffordshire as was her daughter Frances aged 32 born 1879 with no occupation listed and Fred aged 22, born 1889 is a Tramways Conductor. His wife, Lilian, is living at 27 Midway St Manchester at her parents address. Her father George is a Widower aged 52, born 1852 and occupation Housepainter and was born in Manchester. He has four siblings at the address Alice aged 27, born 1884, Harold aged 19, born 1892, Stanley aged 16, born 1895 and Nora aged 12, born 1899.

Fred and Lilian had been married for under a year.  

He enlisted in Manchester and served originally as Private 3212 of the Manchester Regiment and following a transfer was serving in the 19th Battalion of The King’s Liverpool Regiment as Lance-Corporal No 52177. He was on night patrol duty when he was killed in action on the 16^th November, 1916, aged 27, during the Somme Offensive.

He now rests at Bienvillers Military Cemetery, France, where his headstone bears the epitaph:

“GOD HAS MANY CHANGES WILLED BUT YOU ARE DEAR TO MEMORY STILL”

Bienvillers Military Cemetery was begun in September 1915 by the 37th Division, carried on by other Divisions in the line until March 1917, reopened from March to September 1918, when the village was again near the front line, and completed in 1922-24 when a number of graves, mainly of 1916, were brought in from the battlefields of the Ancre. Its twenty-one plots show a remarkable alternation of original burials in regimental or divisional groups, and groups of concentrated graves. The cemetery now contains 1,605 Commonwealth burials and commemorations of the First World War. 425 of the burials are unidentified but there are special memorials to two casualties known or believed to be buried among them. The 16 Second World War burials all date from the early months of the war, before the German invasion in May 1940 forced the evacuation of the British Expeditionary Force from France.

A year after his death his wife place a Memoriam notice in the Manchester Evening News 16th November 1917

MEAKIN - Lance Corporal FRED MEAKIN, King's Liverpool Regiment ( late 2/7 Manchester's), killed in France November 16, 1916.

Dear is the grave where he is laid,

Sweet is the memory that never will fade.

Sadly missed by his WIFE and CHILDREN, 8 Agnes Street, Levenshulme.

His mother had died on 22nd June 1916.

Soldiers Effects to his widow Lilian, pension to Lilian and children Dorothy and Robert Joseph.

Grateful thanks are extended to Jeannette Bolton for her kind permission to use the photograph currently on the site.

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