205422 Sig. Frederick Richmond British Army 10th Btn. Royal Warwickshire Regiment from: 168 Accrington Rd., Blackburn, Lancashire (d.19th Apr 1918) Signaller Frederick Richmond was born in 1900 to Albert and Jane Richmond of Blackburn, Lancashire. When WW1 broke out Fred left home to join the army. He would only have been about 16 years old. He went against his parents wishes. No-one ever knew what became of Fred and to the day she died my grandmother Jane always believed that one day Fred would walk through her door. Upon becoming interested in family research along with my cousin Jack Duckworth, I began looking through records and came across the Commonweath War Graves Commission internet site. Upon searching this site I found that Fred had a commemoration in the Tyne Cot Memorial in Belgium. According to that information he died on 19th April, 1918 aged 19 years.Some time later Jack Duckworth was in Blackburn Public Library and came across a newspaper cutting referring to Fred. He took a photocopy of it which reads as follows:
"Signaller Fred Richmond (35549, "A" Company, 10th Royal Warwickshires and late of the 3rd East Lancs. Regt), whose parents reside at 168 Accrington Road, Blackburn, is reported missing since the 10th April, 1918. Information concerning him will be gratefully received at the above address."
However, nothing was heard of Fred. My grandparents were always in the dark as to what happened to him.
Since that time, in 2005, Jack Duckworth along with his wife and son, went to pay a visit to the Tyne Cot Cemetery and they found Fred's name in the memorial book with Panel Numbers 23-28 & 163A. Jack found the name on a panel with others of the same regiment. He was also told that as bodies were recovered, they are buried in separate graves and if they can be identified their names and regiment are put on the headstone. Unfortunately, Jack couldn't find 163A as there are so many graves. So it is still a bit of a mystery about Fred's grave, but his name is there on a panel. It was very moving to finally uncover the mystery of Frederick Richmond, who would have been my uncle if he had survived the war.
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