Name
Frederick James Cordell
Conflict
First World War
Date of Death / Age
18/05/1915
Rank, Service Number & Service Details
Private
3153
Hertfordshire Regiment
1st Bn.
Awards: Service Medals/Honour Awards
1914 /15 Star, British War and Victory medals
Cemetery/Memorial: Name/Reference/Country
BETHUNE TOWN CEMETERY
III. D. 83.
France
Headstone Inscription
No Report
UK & Other Memorials
Wheathampstead Village Memorial, Hertfordshire Regimental Memorial, All Saints Church, Hertford, Not on the St Albans memorials
Pre War
Frederick James was born in 1894 (baptised 30 Nov 1894) in St Peters, St Albans to John Cordell, and Sarah Ann (nee Bennett). Frederick was their second son: Percy, his older brother had been born in 1891 and his older sister Daisy born in 1888.
Frederick’s father had died in 1900. On the 1901 Census Frederick was living with his widowed mother at 33, Watsons Road, St Albans with his brother Percy and younger siblings James (born 1900) and Maud (born 1896). His mother married James Brown in Hitckin in 1902. By the 1911 Census Frederick was a farm labourer at Place Farm, Wheathampstead (Mr Brown) and a boarder at the National Telephone Company Exchange Office in Wheathampstead with Mr & Mrs Poynter.
Wartime Service
Frederick enlisted on 15 Sep 1914 as Private 3153 in 1st Battalion, Hertfordshire Regiment and went to the British Expeditionary Force on 23 Jan 1915 in a draft of 2 Officers and 195 Other Ranks reaching the Hertfordshires at Givenchy.
The Herfordshires were involved in the Battle of Festubert when on 18 May 1915 they were in support of the Irish and Grenadiers Guards when they attacked the German positions and were called to take over the entrenched positions. During this action Frederick died of his wound on 18 May 1915.
Additional Information
War Gratuity of £3 and arrears of £5 13s 9d was distributed between his Mother, sister Daisy ,half sibling Ross, Jim, GPM, Mrs Alex Tyler, and Ivy V Brown.
Acknowledgments
Neil Cooper
Gareth Hughes, Jonty Wild
