Known as ‘Fred’ to family and friends, Frederick Joseph Thomas Johnson was born in early 1895 in Little Tring to Frederick Charles and Annie Elizabeth Gregory. Elizabeth was Frederick’s second wife and they had married in 1892 in Tring. Along with two daughters from his previous marriage, they eventually had seven children together. Young Fred’s half-sisters were Florence Elizabeth and Ethel May. He also had an older sister Daisy and five younger siblings; Annie, Rose, William, Alfred and Dennis.

In 1901 the family were living at 58 Main Road (now Vicarage Road) in Marsworth just north of Tring and Fred’s father was working as a ‘Navvy’, a physically demanding occupation and one which was dying out following the canal and railway building mania of the previous 150 years.

By 1911, sixteen-year old Fred was living and working in Marsworth as a Farm Labourer. 

Research suggests that Fred moved shortly after 1911 to Bennett’s End near Leverstock Green to live with his Great Uncle George Gill, his Grandmother’s younger brother, who worked in the local brickworks. Soon after this move Fred found employment in the Envelope Department at John Dickinsons.

Following the outbreak of war, he attested at Hemel Hempstead between 31st August and 3rd September 1914 as reported in the Hemel Gazette on 5th Sept were he was listed as F.J.T. Johnson. In September 1916 he is again mentioned in the Gazette, this time as F. Johnson, with a list of all the Dickinson employees who had joined the colours to that point.

By the time of Fred’s enlistment, the 1st Bn. Bedfordshire Regiment was already part of the BEF. It had seen significant action in France at Mons, Le Cateau, the Battles of the Marne and the Aisne, before being rushed north to Flanders where it fought in the Battle of La Bassee, followed by the First Battle of Ypres. By the end of November, the division had suffered 5,000 casualties and stayed in a purely defensive role that winter.

Between August 1914 and February 1915 Fred went through basic training as a new recruit and eventually disembarked in France on the 2nd February 1915 before joining ‘D’ Company in the trenches near Ypres on 19th February.

Over the next two months, Fred saw action in the trenches south of Ypres and by the beginning of April he was with the Battalion ‘in reserve’ before moving up the line to Hill 60. The 1st Beds War Diaries record: "11 Apr 1915 - trenches opposite Hill 60 Battn took over trenches 38 to 45 opposite Hill 60."

This was during the prelude to the British 5th Division attack on Hill 60 on the 17th April 1915. Again from the Battalion War Diaries: "12-16 Apr 1915 Battn in trenches. Work carried out day & night in reconnoitring old disused French & German trenches & in opening up communication trenches, preparing dugouts etc. to shelter extra Battns about to be brought up for attack on Hill 60."

The attack on Hill 60 was the first British operation of its kind. Beginning in early March three tunnels were initiated towards the German line, about 50 yards away and by the time the work was finished, the tunnels stretched more than 100 yards. Royal Engineer tunnelling companies had laid six mines by the 10th April containing almost 10,000lbs (4,500kgs) of high explosives and 500lbs (230kgs) of guncotton (a low-order explosive). Aerial photography revealed German gun emplacements and entrenchments and on the 16th April, British artillery was ranged by air observers onto the approaches to Hill 60, ready for the attack.

It was during these preparations that Fred was killed on Friday, 16th April 1915 although there are no details of how his death occurred.

He is Remembered with Honour on the Ypres (Menin Gate) Memorial, West Vlaanderen, Belgium, Panel 31 and 33.

Fred is commemorated on the memorial for John Dickinson and Co. in Apsley.

He is also Remembered on the Leverstock Green War Memorial and mentioned at the dedication service led by Lt. Colonel Lovel Smeathman on Saturday, 9th April 1921. Details of the service were published in the following week's Hemel Gazette.

Fred was only 20 years old when he died.

He was eligible for the 1914-15 Star, the British War Medal and the Allied Victory Medal.