Pte 58001 Frank Herbert Brede

• Age: 31
• From: Kilburn, London
• Regiment: The King's (Liverpool Regiment) 17th Btn
• K.I.A Monday 9th April 1917
• Commemorated at: St Martin Calvaire Brit Cem
  Panel Ref: I.A.23

Frank Herbert Brede was born in Kilburn, London on the 6th March 1886, the son of Walter Spencer and Ellen (nee Clifton) Brede who were married on the 4th Aug 1877 at St Michael and All Angels, Hackney. Walter was a 25 year old joiner of 23 Kingston Rd, Stoke Newington, Ellen was also 25 of 460 Kingland Rd.

The 1891 Census shows the family are living at 16 Elmar Road, Tottenham, London. His father Walter is not present, mother Ellen is 39 born in Clerkenwell, children Walter 12 b.Stoke Newington, Arthur 11 b.Stoke Newington, Maud 8 b.Peckham, Horace 6 b.Kensal Green and Herbert(Frank) 5 b.Kensal Green.

The 1901 Census shows the family now living at 37 Greenfield Road, Tottenham, London. Frank is the youngest child, now aged 15 and a Merchant's clerk. His father Walter, is head of the household and a Builder's foreman born in London in 1853, whilst his mother Ellen also born in London in 1853. He has 4 siblings, all born in Middlesex except Maud who was born in Surrey; Walter b. 1879 employed as a Dyer, Arthur b.1880 a Merchant's clerk, Maud b.1883, Horace b.1884 a Shippers clerk.

By 1911 the family have moved to 209 St Anns Road, Tottenham. Frank is now 24 and still a Merchant's clerk. Both parents are resident in the household alongside his siblings Arthur and Maud.     

He married Edith M. Keep in the third quarter of 1913 and was living at Ponders End prior to enlistment.

His father, Walter, died in 1915, aged 63.

He enlisted in London and originally served as 175, London Divisional Cyclist Company and following a transfer was serving in the 17^th Battalion, The King’s Liverpool Regiment as Private No 58001.

Frank was killed in action, aged 31, on the 09^th April 1917 during the Battle of Arras. 

17^th,  19^th & 20th  Battalion at the  Battle of Arras 09/04/1917

Everard Wyrall records the events of the day  in Volume 2 of his History of the King's Regiment (Liverpool).

The 89^th Brigade formed up for the attack with the 19^th King's on the right and the 20^th King’s on the left. The 17^th King’s supplied the “mopping up" parties and he 2nd Bedfords were in close support.

It was just after 3pm when the advance began “According to scheduled time the waves advanced in good style and with determination; everyone was cheerful and in the best of spirits”

That advance is described by others as magnificent. From the OP’s the observing officers saw a wonderful sight – long lines of men advancing steadily up a long and gradual slope towards the enemy’ front line. Then suddenly they disappeared. The observers quite pardonably, imagined that the German front line had fallen into the hands of the assaulting troops and that the latter were on the way to the enemy’s support line. Alas something very different had happened. When the advancing troops had reached the summit of the long slope up which they advanced the ground suddenly dipped before the German front line , and when the observing officers thought they  were already in the Bosche lines they had not, as a matter of fact, even reached the wire. What the observers took to be the front line was really the support line; the front line could not be seen  - it lay just behind the crest of that slight rise in the ground.

The attacking waves of the 19^th King’s got within 100 yards of the German wire but were then held up. They were faced by three belts of entanglements, practically untouched by our artillery, and nothing could be done but to dig in or else take shelter in the many shell- shell-with which “No Man’s Land" was pitted. By this time the battalion’s losses were very heavy, and when darkness fell “A" and “B" Companies (about 140 in all) lay in shell-holes, two or three hundred yards north east of St. Martin, but just south of the Cojeul River, and “C" and “D" Companies (140 all ranks) were along the river bank, but on the northern side about 150 yards north east of St. Martin.

The first waves of the 20^th King’ advanced at 3.7p.m. At 4p.m.Lieut Beaumont, commanding “A" Company, reported that he had had some forty casualties in passing through the enemy’s barrage. The next message, timed 4.40p.m., stated that the position of the battalion at that period was on a crest in front of the enemy’s wire and about 100 yards from it. On the right the 21^st Division was observed to have penetrated the enemy’s front line, but in the left the right Battalion of the 21^st Brigade (the Wilts) was on the St. Martin- Neuville Vitasse road; the left flank of the 20^th King's was, therefore, “ in the air”.

Urgent messages were sent up from Battalion Headquarters to “push on, keeping in touch with right” But little else could be accomplished until those formidable belts of wire had been cut sufficiently to allow the rapid passage of the attacking troops,headed by their bombers.

At 9:30 that night 89^th Brigade Headquarters ordered both the 19^th and 20^th Battalions to withdraw, the former to the two sunken roads running south east from St. Martin, the latter to north west of St. Martin; the guns had been ordered to cut the enemy’s wire during the night in preparation for another attack during the 10^th April.

Of the 17^th King’s  - the “moppers up" – there is little to relate. There was nothing to “mop up" so that they did not function. Yet they had shared all the perils of the advance, and when  after they had fallen back and at midnight held the following positions, “B", “C", and “D" Companies in and around the sunken road north of Boiry-Becquerelle and “A" Company in trenches west of Henin, they lost 2 officers and 16 other ranks killed, and 3 officers and 48 other ranks wounded.

He now rests at St Martin Calvaire British Cemetery, France.

The village of St. Martin-sur-Cojeul was taken by the 30th Division on 9 April 1917. It was lost in March 1918 but retaken in the following August. St. Martin Calvaire British Cemetery was named from a calvary which was destroyed during the war. It was begun by units of the 30th Division in April 1917 and used until March 1918. Plot II was made in August and September 1918. The cemetery contains 228 Commonwealth burials of the First World War, five of them unidentified. There are also three German graves within the cemetery. The cemetery was designed by Sir Edwin Lutyens.

Soldiers Effects and Pension were sent to Edith Maria Cooper, 49 Clarence Rd, Ponders End. 

His widow, Edith Maria, aged 28 remarried on the 01st November 1917 at St Matthew's Church to Cecil Mark Cooper, a 33 year old sawyer of 49 Clarence Rd, Ponders End. 

They had a son Norman Cecil born the 25th March 1919.

Edith Maria, dob 03rd June 1889, appears on the 1939 register still at 49 Clarence Road, with Cecil and son Norman Cecil.

She died in 1973 aged 84.

His mother, Ellen, died in 1941 aged 88

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