Fred Bone was born in Redbourn, Hertfordshire on Monday, 9th June 1890 the second child of Harry Bone and Lizzie (Elizabeth) Ann King. Fred had an older sister Edith and two younger siblings, Emily Elizabeth and Herbert George. Fred’s younger brother Herbert died in January 1913 when he was only sixteen-years-old. The Bone family came to Hemel Hempstead shortly after Fred’s tenth birthday in 1901 and moved into 143 Marlowes. Fred initially attended George Street school until he moved to Apsley Boys School in January 1903. He completed his schooling in Apsley and left to start work on the 9th June 1903, his thirteenth birthday.

Young Fred joined G.B. Kent & Sons Ltd., the brush makers in Apsley, and he remained with the firm until he went to war. Whilst at Kent’s he enlisted with the Hertfordshire Regiment as a Territorial soldier. He attested at Hemel Hempstead on the 6th May 1913 and signed up for four years’ service. From his attestation papers we discover that Fred, a month short of his twenty-third birthday was in good physical shape. He was five feet three inches tall with chest measurements of thirty-four-and-a-half inches and an impressive range of expansion of some three-and-a-half inches. He had good vision and was passed fit for military service. However, just four days after Britain declared war on Germany, Fred was discharged from the army on the grounds that he was "…medically unfit for further military service", although the reasons for this rating are not clear.

Fred remained at G.B. Kent & Sons until 1916 when the Military Service Act was passed in January, which effectively introduced conscription. Initially, Fred was exempt due to his medical discharge, but this changed within four months when a revised version of the Act was passed. The revision meant that even men previously declared medically unfit for service were now eligible to fight.

Fred was called up in the late summer and joined the 2nd Bedfordshire Regiment and it may have been his impending departure that persuaded him to marry his sweetheart Alice Lilian Lane. They tied the knot on Saturday, 14th October in the church of St. John the Evangelist in Boxmoor, an event reported in the following weeks edition of the Hemel Gazette. It is not clear when Fred finally went overseas, but it was probably no earlier than January 1917 which saw a number of drafts of new recruits joining the 2nd Bedfordshires in France. Fred was certainly at the Front in April and fought in the Battle of Arras and the First Battle of the Scarpe.

By June, Fred was with his comrades in Belgium where he fought in and survived the Battle of Messines Ridge. Just over a month later he was in the line at Zillebeke where his luck finally ran out. The regimental War Diary recorded the following: "26 Jul 1917…a party under C.S. Major R. Kirby who were returning to CHATEAU SEGARD (17 strong) and were knocked out by a shell near BEDFORD HOUSE, of which 6 were Killed. 5 Died of wounds. 6 Wounded."

Fred was one of the men who succumbed to wounds and he died on Thursday, 26th July 1917.

Back in England Alice gave birth to their son whom she named for his father. Baby Frederick William came into the world on the 26th July, ten short days before his father was tragically killed.

Fred is commemorated on the memorial plaque in G. B. Kent & Sons Ltd. in Apsley.

Fred is Remembered with Honour in Lijssenthoek Military Cemetery, West-Vlaanderen, Belgium where he is interred in Grave: XVI. I. 3A.

He was 27 years old when he died.

Fred was eligible for the British War Medal and the Allied Victory Medal.