Name
Fred Harrowell
12 April 1894
Conflict
First World War
Date of Death / Age
03/10/1918
Rank, Service Number & Service Details
105849
Hertfordshire Yeomanry
1st/1st
Awards: Service Medals/Honour Awards
British War and Victory medals
Cemetery/Memorial: Name/Reference/Country
RAMLEH WAR CEMETERY
CC. 16.
Israel and Palestine (including Gaza)
Headstone Inscription
None
UK & Other Memorials
Hemel Hempstead Town Memorial, St John the Evangelist Church Memorial, Boxmoor, Leverstock Green Village Memorial, Leverstock Green Village School Memorial, Hertfordshire Yeomanry Memorial, St Albans Cathedral, Not on the Hertford memorials
Pre War
Fred Harrowell was born on 12 April 1894 in Leverstock Green, nr. Hemel Hempstead, Herts, the son and oldest child of Arthur and Lizzie Harrowell and baptised there on 13 May 1894. He was one of four children.
On the 1901 Census the family were living at Leverstock Green, where his father worked as a Brickfield labourer and they remained living there in 1911 at which time Fred was working as a Labourer at the Paper Mill (John Dickinson & Co) at Apsley Mills.
He was educated the local village school and was also a Scout in the village troop. (There is a photo of the Leverstock Green Scouts, which Includes Fred Harrowell, on the hemelheroes,com website.).
His parents later lived at Acorn Cottage, Bennetts End, Hemel Hempstead.
Wartime Service
Fred volunteered in September 1915 at Marlows Recruitment Office in Hemel Hempstead and enlisted with the Hertfordshire Yeomanry (reg. no. 2606, later renumbered to 105849).
He was posted to Maresfield, East Sussex to the 3/1st Hertfordshire Yeomanry which was attached to the 13th Reserve Cavalry Regiment and was trained as a trooper in horse warfare. He was posted overseas to the 1/1st Hertfordshire Yeomanry, then serving in Egypt and seems to have spent his whole service period in Egypt, Palestine or Mesopotamia.
In September 1918 the Allies began an advance against the Turks which took them into the Jordan Valley, regarded as a high malarial zone and many men began to catch malaria and die from the disease. Fred was one of those men and he died of malaria at the 76th Casualty Clearing Station in Palestine on 3 October 1918 and is buried at Ramleh War Cemetery, Israel.
Additional Information
His father received a war gratuity of £13 10s and pay owing of £22 19s 9d. His mother received a pension of 5 shillings a week from 15 April 1919. N.B. His registered name is Fred not Frederick, but he is named Frederick on the St John, Boxmoor memorial.
Acknowledgments
Brenda Palmer
Gareth Hughes, google.com/site/leverstockgreenwarmemorial, www.dacorumheritage.org.uk. www.hemelatwar.org., www.hemelheroes.com.
