Name
Frederick Hooker
1891
Conflict
First World War
Date of Death / Age
15/09/1916
25
Rank, Service Number & Service Details
Corporal
12986
Bedfordshire Regiment
8th Bn.
Awards: Service Medals/Honour Awards
1914 /15 Star, British War and Victory medals
Cemetery/Memorial: Name/Reference/Country
THIEPVAL MEMORIAL
Pier and Face 2C
France
Headstone Inscription
N/A
UK & Other Memorials
Welwyn Garden City Memorial, Hatfield Town Memorial, Hatfield Hyde Village Memorial, St. Mary Magdalene, Church Memorial, Hatfield Hyde
Pre War
Frederick Hooker was born in Tottenham, Middx in 1891 the son of Henry and Alice Hooker and baptised on 3 January 1892 at All Hallows Church, Tottenham. They were then living at 4 Farningham Road, Tottenham where his father was working as a Cooper.
On the 1901 Census the family were living at 9 Brache Street, Luton, Beds where his father was again working as a Cooper and his mother was a Laundress on her own account.
By 1911 Frederick had moved out of the family home and was a boarder at the home of George and Alice Keeley at Hatfield Hyde, Herts, at which time he was working as a Sandpit Labourer. His family were living in Park Street Hatfield and his father working as a brewery cooper at the Brewery in Hatfield and his Mother as a laundress.
His parents later lived at The Chequers Inn, Pampisford, Cambridge.
Officially recorded as born in Tottenham, Middx. and was living in Tunbridge Wells, Kent when he enlisted in Hertford.
Wartime Service
Frederick enlisted into the Bedfordshire Regiment and served with the 8th Battalion in France from 4 October 1915 and was probably one of a draft of 115 men who joined the Battalion in the field on 8 October when they were at Vlamertinge. He was initially promoted to Lance Corporal, and later Corporal.
The Battalion were subject to the first German use of Phosgene gas on 19 December 1915, followed by heavy shelling all day. Most of the early months of 1916 were spent in trenches near Poperinghe and Ypres.
Frederick was killed in action on 15 September 1916 during the Battle of Flers-Courcelette (part of the Battle of the Somme) when the Battalion suffered heavy casualties. He has no known grave and his name is commemorated on the Thiepval Memorial, France.
The Bishop’s Hatfield Parish Magazine of October 1914, in the second list of men mobilised from Hatfield, recorded: “Hooker, Fred, Hatfield Hyde, 3rd Beds. Regt.”
Awarded the 1915 Star, British War Medal & Victory Medal.
Additional Information
His father received a war gratuity of £9 10s and pay owing of £2 19s. Although there is a pension record card listing his mother as a dependant, there is no indication of a pension being paid.
Acknowledgments
Brenda Palmer
Brenda Palmer, www.bedfordregiment.org.uk, Christine & Derek Martindale, Hatfield Local History Society (www.hatfieldhistory.uk)
