Name
Frank Abbiss
Conflict
First World War
Date of Death / Age
02/03/1880
Rank, Service Number & Service Details
Awards: Service Medals/Honour Awards
Cemetery/Memorial: Name/Reference/Country
Headstone Inscription
Not Researched
UK & Other Memorials
NA
Biography
Frank was one of two men of that name who were born in Pirton and who fought in the war. One died and is recorded on the Village War Memorial and one survived.
This Frank was born on March 2nd 1880 to George and Ellen (née Clark). Baptism and census records list eight children: Ruth (bapt 1873), Frederick George (b 1875), Alice (bapt 1878), Frank (b 1880), Harry (b 1888), Margaret Lizzie (b 1892), Violet (b 1895) and Nellie Ivy (b 1899).
By 1911, Frank’s father had died leaving his mother Ellen a widow, then fifty-six, living with her daughters, Violet and Nellie. She was illiterate – the enumerator signed the census on her behalf and her opportunity to earn money limited. Frank had left home, probably to earn a living and could have been helping his mother who was surviving on Parish relief.
It is not clear exactly when he enlisted. Possibly in 1915, as the Parish Magazine of September 1915 records Frank Abbiss as enlisting during 1915, but before August, and serving in the 1st Bedfordshire Regiment. However, photographs seem to show that he served in the Queens (Royal West Surrey Regiment). He would have been thirty-four at the outbreak of war.
Thanks to Stanley Abbiss (his son, now deceased) and Gladys Tullett (née Abbiss, his granddaughter) it has been possible to add a lot more information for the Frank that survived.
In 1902, on March 31st, when his profession was recorded as a labourer, aged twenty-two, he married Ruth Titmuss, aged twenty-eight in St. Mary’s Church. They had four children, including George (Gladys’ father), Elsie, Eva and Stanley, and then six grandchildren.
Gladys remembers that Frank worked in the building trade and lived in Finsbury Park where he spent the rest of his life. In 1929 they were living in Charteris Road before moving to Lorne Road. He died on March 1st 1951, aged seventy.
Stanley remembered the following information. Frank was born in Pirton around 1880 and his mother was Ellen. She lived all her life in Cromwell Terrace and, in fact, died there. Stanley remembers walking with his father at her funeral. They followed the funeral bier, pictured in the Pirton book ‘A Foot on Three Daisies’ (page 105). He confirmed the marriage to Ruth Titmuss, that by the time of the war they were living at 39 Charteris Road, Finsbury Park, London, and that he worked as a builder. He was also able to add that he was involved in the construction of the old Arsenal football ground and later worked on the Golders Green Crematorium.
Stanley was born just before the start of the war and kept the birthday cards sent by his father from the Front.
Little is known about his war service; like a lot of the men, he didn't speak much about his experience. However, Stanley remembers that, while he was waiting to join up for service in World War Two, his dad told him that he had been wounded in the arm and, during one of the retreats, “when he was carrying an anvil in a wheelbarrow, he couldn't keep up with the rest of his unit, so he tipped the lot into a ditch beside the road.” “Perhaps an experience in the Great War was responsible for the fact that Frank would never go into the shelter during the Second World War?”
Additional Information
Text from the book “The Pride of Pirton” by Jonty Wild, Tony French & Chris Ryan used.
Acknowledgments
Text from the book “The Pride of Pirton” by Jonty Wild, Tony French & Chris Ryan used.
