Frederick Field was born in March 1876 in Hemel Hempstead and baptised at St Mary’s Church later in the same year on Tuesday, 1st August. He was the youngest child born to John Field and Sarah Ann Burr who had four boys; Thomas, James, Charles and Frederick.

The family were living in Bury Mill End in Hemel Hempstead when Frederick was born, and his father John was working as a ‘Labourer’. His mother Sarah worked at home as a ‘Straw Plaiter’, his oldest brother Thomas was a ‘Lamp Lighter’ and his brother James was a ‘Farm Labourer’ at the age of twelve. His brother Charles was at school and Frederick was at home with his mother.

By 1891 the family had moved to Keen’s Place just off the High Street in Hemel Hempstead and only sixteen-year-old Frederick was living with his parents. He was working as ‘Mill Hand’ at John Dickinson & Co Limited at Apsley Mills.

Two years later Frederick joined the Militia, enlisting with the 4th Bedfordshire Regiment on the 18th January 1893 just short of his nineteenth birthday. In early June 1895 he briefly transferred to the Militia Reserve before deciding to become a Regular Soldier just two weeks later with the Bedfordshire Regiment. He then served for four years before transferring back to the Reserve.

He was still in the Reserve in 1911 (by that time known as the Territorial Force) and was working as a labourer however, he had left the Regiment by the time he war started. On the outbreak of war, thirty-five-year-old Frederick re-enlisted with his old regiment attesting at Hemel Hempstead in August 1914. It was to be another six months before he was called up for service overseas and his previous military experience meant he was quickly promoted Corporal, then Serjeant before he embarked for France and landing on the 30th September 1915.

He joined the 2nd Battalion in the trenches at Cuinchy on the 4th October 1915 and saw action over the next eight months until the end of June 1916. The 2nd Battalion then fought at the Battle of Albert one of the first engagements at the Battle of the Somme and some time over the next twelve days, Frederick was wounded and taken prisoner by the Germans.

The German Prisoner of War records indicate that Frederick succumbed to his wounds (possibly gunshot wounds to his lungs) and that he died on the 17th July 1916.

The Germans buried Frederick in the Manancourt Churchyard not far from where he was captured. However, his grave was lost later in the war and instead he is now commemorated on the ‘Kipling Memorial’ at Tincourt New British Cemetery.

The Kipling Memorial headstone is so called because the quotation from the ‘Apocrypha’ (Ecclesiasticus 44, verse 13) "THEIR GLORY SHALL NOT BE BLOTTED OUT" which appears on the headstone was chosen by Rudyard Kipling. These headstones commemorate casualties whose graves in a particular cemetery were destroyed or who were known to be buried in a particular cemetery but the exact whereabouts within the cemetery were not recorded.

Frederick died on Monday, 17th July 1916.

Frederick is Remembered with Honour in Tincourt New British Cemetery, Somme, France. The inscription on his memorial reads: "To the memory of these two British Soldiers who died in 1916 as Prisoners of War, and were buried at the time in Manancourt Communal Cemetery Extension, but whose graves are now lost." 

" THEIR GLORY SHALL NOT BE BLOTTED OUT."

Frederick was 40 years old when he died.

He was entitled to the 1914-15 Star, the British War Medal and the Allied Victory Medal.