Frederick Arthur Jones was born in Farnbourgh, near Dartford, Kent in 1882 son of Henry Jones and Emma Hopkins who had a large family of eleven children together. Frederick’s siblings were Maria, Emma, Maud, Harry, Lizzie (Elizabeth), Mary Ann, Herbert, Florence, Alfred and Bessie.

The family lived in Hammerfield when it first arrived in Hemel Hempstead in about 1890 and Frederick’s father Henry worked as a “Gardener”. By 1901 and following his father Henry’s untimely death, the family had moved to South Hill Road and with the exception of Frederick’s mother Emma and the two youngest children, he and his siblings were all employed in Apsley Mills with John Dickinson & Co., Limited.

Frederick left Dickinsons the following year and went to work at G. B. Kent and Sons Limited in the Brush Factory at Frogmore in Apsley. He remained with the firm, where he worked as a “Brush Finisher”, until he left to go to war sixteen years later. It was in the early 1900s that Frederick met his future wife Annie Rammell Adams a native of Totnes, Devon who had come with her family to Hemel Hempstead in the 1890s when her father George, came to run a pub at Two Waters in Boxmoor. He also had a “Fried Fish Shop” as these were gaining popularity outside seaside towns as the railways brought fresh fish to towns and cities and “fish and chips” became the first takeaway meal. Frederick and Annie became sweethearts, and they were married in St. Mary’s Church, Apsley End in the summer of 1909 and they set up home on Ebberns Road in Apsley. Their only child, a son, was born in May 1913 and named Leslie George Arthur.

Frederick’s work at the brush factory was “starred”, in other words considered vital to the war effort. Indeed Kent’s Brushes undertook government contracts to supply products such as toothbrushes to the services and this along with his marital status kept Frederick at home. However, he made the decision to enlist voluntarily in 1918 when he attested at Hertford on the 3rd April and joined the Army. He was immediately posted for training and only five months later on the 7th August he was sent overseas and posted to the 7th Battalion Queen’s Own (Royal West Kent Regiment). Frederick’s time at the front was tragically brief and he was with his unit for only six weeks when he fell. His death was made more poignant so close to the Allied victory and the Armistice in November.

He was wounded in action in fighting near Ronssoy, south of Cambrai and he succumbed to his injuries on Tuesday, 24th September 1918.

Shortly after his death a brief report along with his picture was published in the Hemel Gazette.

 

Annie went back to her hometown of Totnes with young Leslie, and remarried in 1919 to Reginald Savage who had also fought in the Great War.

Frederick is commemorated on the War Memorial Plaques in G. B. Kent and Sons and in St. Mary’s Church, Apsley End.

He is Remembered with Honour in Abbeville Communal Cemetery Extension, Somme, France, where he is interred in Grave IV. F. 15.

He was 36 years old when he died.

Frederick was entitled to the British War Medal and the Allied Victory Medal.