Pte 79706 Frederick Hall

• Age: 25
• From: Liverpool
• Regiment: 11 WELSH REGT 17th Btn
• Died on Wednesday 18th September 1918
• Commemorated at: Doiran Military Cemetery
  Panel Ref: V.E.28

His CWGC record states that Fred was the son of Alice and the late F. Hall and gives his age as 23. However, records do not corroborate these facts.  It seems that Frederick Hall was born Frederick Shaw in Liverpool in late 1892, the only son of Frederick Hewitt Shaw and Alice Annie (née Woolley), who married in 1890 in Wavertree, Liverpool. His father was 27 and his mother gives her age as 18 (she was 17).   His father was born in Birkenhead and his mother in Derby.   

In 1891 his parents were living at 30 Frodsham Street, Walton.  His father, 28, was a joiner, and his mother 18.

 

Sadly, his father died in the summer of 1892, before his son was born.

 

When Fred was two years old his mother Alice married again in 1895 to Vincent Horace Lambert Hall, and it seems that Frederick took his stepfather’s surname as he is found on all subsequent records as Hall.  The family spent some time in Glasgow, where daughter Alice Laura (Laurie) was born in 1896. 

(The birth certificate of his sister Alice Laura Hall confirms his mother's life as Miss Woolley, Mrs Shaw then Mrs Hall).

 

By 1901 the family is back in the Liverpool area, visiting Charles and Amelia Bush, at 184 Irlam Road, Bootle.  His stepfather Vincent, born in Liverpool, is a steamship baggage man.  Vincent and Alice are both 27, Fred is 8 and Laura 5.

 

In 1911 his mother, with two children, is found at 6 Grosvenor Drive, Liscard, Cheshire.  Alice (listed as Alicia), is 38, a milliner’s shop assistant, and states she is widowed;  no death record has been found for her husband.  Fred is 18, a cotton office clerk, and Alice Laura is 15.  They have a domestic servant/sick nurse. 

 

Later in 1911 his mother married in Belfast, to John Greeves Sinton, born in Armagh (who is found on a Quaker register in Liverpool).   Fred remained in Liverpool, and appears on the electoral roll for 1918 at 51 Bryanston Road, Sefton Park.  (Elizabeth Beatrice Lloyd and/or her son Herschell Lort Lloyd lived at this address from at least 1901 until 1920).

 

When Fred enlists at St George's Hall in Liverpool on 01st September 1914 he states he has lived out of his father’s house for three years, and gives his residence as Sefton Park.  He joined the 17th Battalion of The King’s Liverpool Regiment as Private 15188, giving his age as 21 years and 295 days, and his occupation as clerk.  He is described as being 5’ 9 and a quarter inches tall, weighing 120 lbs, with a fair complexion, green eyes and brown hair.  He gives his religion as C of E, and as next of kin his mother, Alice Sinton, Red(?) House, Green Road, Knock, County Down. 

He was billeted at Prescot Watch Factory from 14^th September 1914, he trained there and also at Knowsley Hall. On 30th April 1915 the 17th Battalion alongside the other three Pals battalions left Liverpool via Prescot Station for further training at Belton Park, Grantham. They remained here until September 1915 when they reached Larkhill Camp on Salisbury Plain.

Whilst at Lark Hill, on 05/09/1915, for being absent three days, Fred was confined to barracks for 14 days and forfeited three days’ pay.

 

He embarked for France with his battalion from Folkestone, disembarking at Boulogne on 07th November 1915.

 

He was wounded in action on the first day of the Battle of the Somme, with a gunshot wound to the right hand, and evacuated to the U.K. on the Hospital Ship Stad Antwerpen on 03/7/1916.  He was admitted to the Bevan Military Hospital, near Folkestone, Kent (medical record shows shrapnel wound, right hand), and was discharged on 12/7/1916 to Convalescent Camp, Eastbourne, until 25/7/1916.

 

05/8/1916 posted 21st (Reserve) Battalion King's Liverpool Regiment.

 

On 07/9/1916 at Formby, he was absent for 20 minutes, and received 2 days’ C.B.

 

09/9/1916 posted 3rd (Garrison)  Battalion King's Liverpool Regiment.

26/10/1916 posted to M.E.F.

 

On 06/11/1916 he disembarked at Salonika and on 12/11/1916 joined the 14th  Battalion King's Liverpool Regiment.

 

05/7/1917 appointed unpaid Lance Corporal

September 1917 attended Machine Gun School

23/12/1917 to 67 Field Ambulance, scabies

30/12/1917 rejoined unit

 

11/3/1918 admitted C.C.S. malaria

14/3/1918 to 29 General Hospital, Salonika

03/4/1918 to No.2 Convalescent Depot

18/4/1918 to 29 General Hospital, malaria

03/5/1918 to No.2 Convalescent Depot

23/5/1918 to 49 General Hospital, malaria

01/6/1918 to No.2 Convalescent Depot

14/6/1918 to I.B.D. Salonika 

 

As his unit, the 14th Battalion, had departed for France in June 1918, on 16th August 1918 he was transferred to the 11th Battalion of the Welsh Regiment, reverting to Private, and remained in Salonika.  

 

The Third Battle of Doiran was fought from 18–19 September 1918, with the Greeks and the British assaulting the positions of the Bulgarian First Army near Doiran Lake.

Fred was killed in action on the 18^th September, 1918 aged 25 at Salonika.

He now rests at Doiran Military Cemetery. The inscription on his head stone reads:

“IT IS BUT CROSSING TO FIND THE FRIENDS WHO WAIT” 

The cemetery (originally known as Colonial Hill Cemetery No.2) was formed at the end of 1916 as a cemetery for the Doiran front. The graves are almost entirely those of officers and men of the 22nd and 26th Divisions and largely reflect the fighting of April and May 1917 (the attacks on the Petit-Couronne), and 18-19 September 1918 (the attacks on Pip Ridge and the Grand-Couronne). In October and November 1918, after the final advance, a few burials took place from the 25th Casualty Clearing Station. After the Armistice, graves were brought into the cemetery from the battlefields and from by some small burial grounds, the most important of which was Strumnitza British Military Cemetery, north-west of Doiran, made by the 40th Casualty Clearing Station in October and November 1918. DOIRAN MILITARY CEMETERY now contains 1,338 Commonwealth burials of the First World War, 449 of them unidentified. There are also one French and 45 Greek war graves. The DOIRAN MEMORIAL, which stands near the cemetery, serves the dual purpose of Battle Memorial of the British Salonika Force (for which a large sum of money was subscribed by the officers and men of that force), and place of commemoration for more than 2,000 Commonwealth servicemen who died in Macedonia and whose graves are not known. The memorial was designed by Sir Robert Lorimer with sculpture by Walter Gilbert.

The Bulgarians surrendered twelve days later, on 30th September.

 

Based on his age on enlistment, and on censuses, Fred was 25 years old.  The CWGC, based on information provided by his family, gives his age as 23.

 

A notice was placed in the Liverpool Echo on 30th October 1918: 

“Lance-Corporal Frederick Hall (late Pals), killed in action September 18, only son of Mrs. Sinton of Belfast. - Deeply regretted by all at 51 Bryanston Road, St. Michael’s.” 

 

In 1920 his mother and Laura, 23, were living in Kingscourt Buildings, Wellington Place, Belfast.  His mother received Fred’s Memorial Scroll.

 

He earned his three medals, which his sister Laurie signed for in 1921 and 1922, by which time she and her mother had moved to Cheshire, at 81 Hoole Road, Hoole.

 

The pension card in the name of his sister Laurie shows that a pension was refused on the grounds of no prior dependence.  His Army effects went to his sister Laurie as administrator, including a War Gratuity of £18-10s. 

Probate, giving Fred’s address as Kingscourt, Wellington Place, Belfast, was granted to Laurie in the amount of £120.

 

By 1939 his mother with husband John Sinton are living at 99 Hoole Rd, Hoole, Cheshire.  Alice died in December 1940.

 

There is an F. Hall commemorated on the Liverpool Cotton Association Memorial. 

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

Family trees suggest his step-father Vincent Hall disappeared to London and started a new family aka Harold Vincent Hall, served in ww1  with ASC, on 1939 register correct dob 5th April 1875, died 1954.