Frederick William Hitchcock, known as Fred, was born in Hemel Hempstead, Hertfordshire on Friday, 21st June 1895 and baptised on Friday, 12th July of the same year in St Mary’s Church in the town. He was the second son and fifth child of Charles John Hitchcock and Annie Lane who had a large family of ten children who were, Lily, Charles John, Ann, Rose, Fred William, Stanley, Sidney Thomas, Winifred Daisy, Herbert Reginald and Nellie. Stanley died when he was just a year old in 1899 whilst Fred’s brother Charles also died in the Great War aged twenty-nine, six weeks before Fred. Charles went down with the torpedoed RSS Leinster on the 10th October 1918. His biography is also on this site. When Fred was born his family lived on Bury Hill in Hemel Hempstead and his father Charles worked as a ‘Bricklayer’s Labourer’. Over the years his father found work as a ‘Gravedigger’ and a ‘Farm Labourer, whilst almost all of his children, including Fred went to work at John Dickinson & Co. Limited in Apsley Mills.

On the outbreak of war Fred remained at Apsley Mills where he worked as a “Printer” which as a skilled job was one of many which were “starred” or reserved. This meant that he needed his employer’s permission to volunteer and it would not be until June 1915, that Fred was able join the Colours. In June 1915, he attested at Hemel Hempstead and enlisted with the Royal Horse and Field Artillery and was immediately posted for basic training. He was assigned to be a Driver and on completion of his training he was sent overseas to the Middle East and the Egyptian Expeditionary Force where he was posted to the 54th (1st East Anglian) Division Royal Field Artillery.

Fred embarked for France on the 18th November and landed the following day where his brigade joined the 33rd Division whose artillery was still in training. He remained on the Western front for a month before learning that his unit was to re-join its original division in Egypt. He left from Marseille on the 30th January bound for North Africa arriving in Alexandria on the 14th February before moving first to Mena Camp near Cairo and then in April into No 1 (Southern) Section of the Suez Canal defences. At the end of 1916 his Brigade was renamed the 270th Brigade and re-organised into six-gun batteries and Fred was posted to “A” Battery (1/1st Hertfordshire).

In 1917, Fred was involved in all three Battles of Gaza and at the end of the year, the Battle of Jaffa. He was at Berukin in April 1918 and was five months later, part of Allenby’s final offensive at Megiddo in September at the Battle of Sharon. Having survived all these engagements and seeing the end of hostilities on the 31st October 1918, Fred went back to Egypt to await demobilisation and his return to England. Sadly however, in mid-November he was struck down by malaria and immediately admitted to hospital in Alexandria. His treatment either came too late to be of any use or availability of quinine, the only effective remedy at the time, was limited due to a malarial epidemic during the preceding month.

Fred quickly deteriorated and tragically died of his illness on Monday, 25th November 1918. His family received notification of Fred’s death less than two months after his older brother Charles had been killed, a bitter blow given that the war had finally ended.

He was commemorated on the John Dickinson & Co. Limited War Memorial at Apsley End where he had worked and the War Memorial plaque in St Mary’s Church in Hemel Hempstead where he had been baptised. An “In Memoriam” notice appeared in the Hemel Gazette a year after Fred’s death.

Fred is Remembered with Honour in the Alexandria (Hadra) War Memorial Cemetery, Egypt, where he is interred in Grave E. 225. The inscription on his headstone, requested by his mother Annie, reads simply: “R.I.P.”

He was 23 years old when he died.

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