Biography of Private Frederick Thomas Smith (11884)
8th Battalion Lincolnshire Regiment
Died 26th September 1915

Soldier

  • Name: Frederick Thomas Smith
  • Date of birth: 1894
  • Place of Birth: Edenham, Lincolnshire, England
  • Date of Birth Registration: July – September 1894
  • Place of Birth Registration: Bourne, Lincolnshire England

Father

  • Name: Thomas Smith
  • DOB: 1865
  • Place of Birth: Edenham, Lincolnshire, England
  • Occupation: Carter on estate (private)

Mother

  • Name: Mary Jane Porter Thacker
  • DOB: 1870
  • Place Of Birth: Ewerby, Lincolnshire, England
  • Marriage: 1891 Grantham District

Siblings: (Name), (DOB), (POB)

  • Emma Jane Smith, 1892, Edenham
  • Frederick Thomas Smith, 1894, Edenham
  • Margaret Ellen Smith, 1898, Edenham
  • George Robert Smith, 1900, Edenham
  • Sydney Smith, 1903, Edenham

Census

  • 1901: Frederick is living with his parents in Main Road, Edenham, Lincolnshire.
  • 1911: Frederick is living with his parents at Edenham, Lincolnshire. The census gives him an age of 16 and he is listed as a brick layer on estate.

Relatives in services

  • None found

Marriage

  • No marriage for Frederick has been found and because of his age we can assume that he never had the opportunity to marry.

Newspaper Mentions

  • Sheffield Daily Telegraph Tuesday 2nd November 1915
    MISSING
    LINCOLNS
    8th Battalion
    Smith (11884), F. T.

 

  • The Standard Tuesday 2nd November 1915
    MISSING
    LINCOLN REGT
    8th Battalion
    Smith, 11884 F. T.

 

  • Grantham Journal Saturday 6th November 1915
    LINCOLNS
    8th Battalion
    MISSING
    Smith 11884 F. T.

 

  • Grantham Journal Saturday 5th February 1916
    Pte. R Armstrong, 8th Lincolns
    It is with deep regret we have to record the death of Pte. Robert Armstrong, from wounds received in France. He was the eldest son of Mr. and Mrs. R. Armstrong, of Grimsthorpe. With others from Edenham, he joined Lord Kitchener’s Army, in September 1914, and in August 1915, with the 8th Lincolns, went to the front, and was at the battle of Loos, the end of September. In this engagement he escaped unhurt, but one of his comrades, Pte. Fred Smith, of Edenham, has been missing ever since, and another, Pte. J. Botherway, was wounded. It was while on sentry duty on January 21st that he was severely wounded in the head, and though everything possible was done at the base hospital to which he was conveyed, he succumbed to his injuries without regaining consciousness, on January 26th. The sad news was received by his sorrowing parents in a letter from one of the sisters of the Hospital, on Friday last, and in the evening a dumb peal  was rung. Before joining the Army, Armstrong and Smith were two of the ringers at Edenham Church, and their comrades desire to express their deepest sympathy with the parents. The greatest sympathy is felt by all for the bereaved, and on Sunday the Vicar spoke of the matter as follows:- We are mourning, deeply and sincerely, for the loss of one belonging to us who has given his life for his King and country.  Greater love hath no man than that he lay down his life for his friends. More cannot be done by any one for us or for his country than to die for it. Such a death is fell of honour, and is worth more than the longest of old age or than a multitude of ordinary lives. Such teats as our nation is now going through bring out the heroism of individuals and the true greatness of a people. The whole British Empire has risen to the same high standard of loyalty and duty. We may be glad and proud the our generation is meeting the stern test of war with as fine and great a spirit as was ever shown by any of our forefathers. As we know what their heroism and courage have achieved, we may look forward with confidence to a victorious issue from our own trial.  Gigantic as our present struggle is, we have had to face greatest dangers in the past and we have dealt successfully with countries who were relatively far stranger in population and resources than Germany is when compared with the British Empire and its Allies.  In the hardest of our former wars, most of our present Allies were against us, and for a time during the struggle of twenty years the island of Great Britain stood alone against a whole world in arms, led and organised by the genius of Napoleon.  That great man helped to form and extend the British Empire; the present German Emperor has done more than any other single person to unite and consolidate it.  Our most urgent duty in the future will be to see that this unity and consolidation becomes a reality in trade, finance, law and all matters of defence. We must drift no longer. Whatever the general results of the struggle may be, the individual losses demanded by it are grievous and hard to be borne.  we are all losers through the disappearance of Robert Armstrong, who in so many ways was an exemplary and most popular member of our community.  In all that he did he gave his best; and not the least valuable of his gifts was the cheery and happy manner in which they were bestowed.  Most of all are the losers who were connected with him more nearly by the ties of family and friendship.  We imagine what their blank must and will be; and they have our cordial sympathy, far more that in ordinary bereavements, because in these cases we have a right to join in their sorrow, since it is undergone for reasons in which we all are concerned. We are all equally interested in those who are giving and risking their lives on our behalf.  While we mourn those who are lost, let us not fail to remember that those who die in this righteous and necessary war, which has been forced upon our Sovereign and his Allies, are martyrs in the truest sense, not only in the high cause of patriotism, but in the still higher causes of liberty and civilisation.  They become heroes in the service of humanity; and. alas! there is no heroism without the risk or the certainty of sacrifice.  Those who are killed or maimed in this was are also victims demanded by the crimes and bestiality of those who would destroy everything that makes human life worth living.  Unless righteousness and justice, and liberty and kindly human feeling are to vanish out of the earth, let us be sure that in due time the world will be delivered from the abominations with which it is being threatened; and that the sacrifice of noble and gallant lives in the defence of all that is best and most precious to us, will not have been made in vain. Therefore, the sword of Justice must never be sheathed until the full work of retribution has been completed, and an adequate punishment inflicted upon the authors of the foulest and most colossal crimes which have ever been committed.
    News has also been received that another from this village, Pte. Edgar Green, was wounded on January 22nd, though not seriously, and on Tuesday morning his parents received the welcome intelligence that the bullet had been removed, and he was going on well.

     

    Military Records

    Attestation Papers

    • None found

    Soldier’s Died In The Great War

    • These records show that Private Frederick Smith, 11884, 8th Bn, Lincolnshire Regiment was killed in action on 26th September 1915 in the Western European Theatre in France and Flanders.

    Pension Records

    • Available

    Effects Left To

    • Father Thomas

    Medals

    • The British Medal
    • The Victory Medal
    • The 15 Star

    Memorials

    • UK:
    • Edenham, Roll of Honour in St Michael and All Angels Church

     

    • Commonwealth War Graves Commission:
    • In memory of Private Frederick Thomas Smith, 11884, 8th Bn., Lincolnshire Regiment who died on 26 September 1915 Age 21
    • Son of Thomas and Mary Jane Smith, of Edenham, Bourne, Lincs.
    • Remembered with honour, Loos Memorial
    • Panel 31 to 34.

      © Picture taken by South Lincolnshire War Memorials

      © Picture taken by South Lincolnshire War Memorials

      Military Service Timeline

      • This is ongoing research and will be posted when completed

      Sources

      • WW1 Soldier’s Records (www.ancestry.co.uk)
      • British Newspaper Archive.
      • Fold 3
      • Find My Past
      • Genealogist
      • Forces War Records
      • British Army Service Numbers
      • War Gratuity Calculator
      • Commonwealth War Graves Commission
      • National Archives – Battalion War Diaries
      • General Registry Office