Private FREDERICK CHARLES RICHARDS

53, Lower Stockbridge Road, Winchester (116, Stockbridge Road today)
Service numbers 4/1793 and 200163. 1/4th Battalion, The Hampshire Regiment
Died in captivity, Turkey, between 29 April 1916 and 30 January 1917

Life Summary

Frederick Charles Richards was born in Winchester in the second quarter of 1894, the youngest child of Edward and Sarah Ann Richards. One of eight children, Fred, as he was known to family and friends, came from a solid working-class family. He worked as a hairdresser and joined the Territorials in 1912. He died a prisoner of the Turks after the fall of Kut-al-Amara, Mesopotamia (modern Iraq), in 1916.

Family Background

Frederick’s father Edward was born in Portsmouth in 1849. He spent his life working variously as a labourer, blacksmith, engine smith and ships smith. Frederick’s mother was born Sarah Snook in Portsmouth on 25 January 1852. Her father, James (1827-1889), a shoemaker, had been born in Muny, Somerset. Her mother, Charlotte Barnden (1830-1912), was a Portsmouth girl.

Edward and Sarah married in Portsmouth on 5 November 1871 and went on to have eight children over the following 24 years. Of these, five were born in Portsmouth: Anne (1872-1916), Emma (1874-1948), Phoebe (1876-1935), Charlotte (1884-1967) and Alfred (1888-). Jane (1880-1947) was born in Pembroke, Wales, while Frederick and Winifred (1891-1983) were the only two siblings to be born in Winchester. Sarah gave birth to five other children who died.

In 1881 the Richards family were living at 13, Landport Street, Portsmouth, but ten years later they had moved to 21, King Alfred Place, Hyde, Winchester. Edward Richards was working as an engine smith and daughters Anne, Emma and Phoebe as laundresses. By 1901 the family had moved again, to 13, Egbert Road, Hyde. Edward was a general labourer and daughter Jane a packer in a steam laundry. In 1903 the Richards were at 19, Monks Road, Hyde

It is not known which school Fred attended, but it was probably St Thomas Church of England Boys’ School where his brother Alfred had been a pupil. Given that Alfred also went to the Wesleyan School in Parchment Street as an infant, it is possible that Fred had earlier followed him there too.

By 1911 the family were living at 53, Lower Stockbridge Road, a property which had eight rooms. The house was renumbered as 116, Stockbridge Road after the war and still stands today. Edward Smith was working as a ships smith while Fred, who by this time had left school, was an assistant in the railway refreshment bar at Winchester station. Among those also living in the house were Fred’s sister Charlotte, her husband William Smith, a builder’s labourer, and the couple’s 11-month-old son, William Jnr. Alfred was also still living at home and working as an assurance collector.

The family continued to live at 53, Lower Stockbridge Road until 1914. However, they were not there during the war years and it is not until 1918 that Edward Richards reappears in the Warren’s Winchester Directory, living at 29, Western Road, Fulflood. This is the house in which Fred’s brother Alfred had lived between 1914 and 1917 before moving a few doors to No. 21 in 1918.

It is not clear where Fred’s parents were living between 1915 and 1917. One complication is an entry in the Hampshire Regimental Journal of July 1917 announcing Fred’s death. The entry not only gives the Richards’s address as 15, North View, Fulflood, but states that before the war Fred had lived at the YMCA at 73, High Street, Winchester (today the Cote restaurant), and that Edward and Sarah had been caretakers. The North View address may be an error as no record can be found of a Richards living there, or anywhere else in North View, between 1900 and 1918 although it is possible that the couple may have lodged at the house.

As for the YMCA connection, there is no Richards listed at 73, High Street before 1914. However, the Warren’s Directory does show a ‘Mrs Richards, caretaker’ as the householder there between 1915 and 1917.

One explanation is that Edward and Sarah moved in with Alfred at 29, Western Road early in the war and then took over the house in 1918 when their son moved to No. 21. Another, more likely, explanation is that Edward and Sarah both lived at the YMCA between 1915 and 1917 before moving to Western Road. Evidence for this is contained in the Prisoner Comforts Fund ledger of Mrs Esme Bowker (see Mrs Esme Bowker) which gives the Richards’ address in 1916 as the ‘YMCA, Winton’. Fred’s wartime battalion, the 1/4th Hampshires, also kept records of all the Winchester men who served with them. The list was probably compiled in 1914 or 1915 and the entry for Fred gives his address as 53, Lower Stockbridge Road. Scribbled in pencil next to that is the word ‘YMCA’.

Although the precise whereabouts of Edward and Sarah during the war is something of a mystery they were certainly in Winchester. By 1918 they were back together at 29, Western Road and this is Fred Richards’s address in the Winchester War Service Register, compiled in 1921. However, Fred never lived there. Instead he went to war in 1914 from either the family home in Stockbridge Road or from the YMCA.

Great War Record

The other interesting fact revealed in the Regimental Journal is that by 1914 Fred had found a new job, as an apprentice hairdresser working for J. & C. Yates at 4, Parchment Street, Winchester. Fred Richards’s first service number (4/1793) indicates that he joined the 4th Battalion, The Hampshire Regiment as a Territorial in 1912. Regimental records show that he sailed with the 1/4th Hampshires to India in October 1914, when the battalion split into two shortly after the outbreak of war.

At this point, however, something unexpected happened. Instead of transferring to Mesopotamia with the rest of his battalion in March 1915, Fred remained in India. Quite why this should have happened is unclear – possibly he was sick or perhaps he had been detached to serve with the 2/4th Battalion, which had arrived in India at the start of 1915. This second possibility is backed up by regimental records which reveal that in October 1915 the 2/4th Battalion sent 250 men as reinforcements to the 1/4th in Mesopotamia. This dovetails neatly with the date on Fred’s Medal Index Card which shows that he entered the Asiatic theatre of war on 25 October 1915.

Once in Mesopotamia, Fred was assigned to ‘A’ Company of the 1/4th Hampshires. The company formed part of the British-Indian garrison at Kut-al-Amara which was besieged by the Turks for five months from 7 December 1915 until its surrender on 29 April 1916 (for details of the siege see Kut). Fred, who had been wounded on 11 December, in the early stages of the siege, was then marched off into captivity as a prisoner of war.

Uncertainty also surrounds the date of Fred Richards’s death. The WWSR states it was on 17 June 1916, while Mrs Esme Bowker, widow of the 1/4th Battalion’s Commanding Officer, states in her Prisoner Comforts Fund records that he died on 30 June 1916 during the march into captivity. However, the Commonwealth War Graves Commission gives the date of death as 30 January 1917.

One clue lies in the fact that Fred died at Nesibin (Nisibin) PoW camp in Turkey. We know this both from the WWSR and because Fred is commemorated on the Nisibin Memorial at Baghdad (North Gate) War Cemetery in Iraq. It seems reasonable, therefore, to conclude that he did not die on the march into captivity, but several months later after he reached his PoW camp. However, it is impossible to know with certainty the exact date of Fred’s death - probably from disease - other than it was between 29 April 1916 and 30 January 1917. He was 21 years old.

Several months passed before news of Fred’s death reached Winchester. The Hampshire Regimental Journal of July 1917 stated:

RICHARDS. Pte. Fred Richards, Hampshire Regiment, died prisoner of war in Turkey, date, place, and cause unknown, youngest and much-loved son of Mr and Mrs E. Richards, late of Y.M.C.A., High Street, Winchester, aged 21.

Mr and Mrs E. Richards, of 15, North View, Winchester, late caretakers of the Y.M.C.A, High Street, have received official notice that their youngest son, Pte. F. Richards, 1793, who was shut up in Kut, wounded, and then taken prisoner of war, died as a prisoner of war between 29th April,1916, and January 30th, 1917. He was an apprentice of Mr. Yates, hairdresser, Parchment Street, and said his last ‘goodbye’ at the Y.M.C.A. before sailing for India with the Hampshire Regiment on October 9th, 1914.

Family after the Great War

Fred’s parents continued to live at 29, Western Road after the war. His father Edward died around 1924 and by 1926 the Warren’s Directory shows the house listed in the names of his widow Sarah and her son-in-law William Smith. William and his wife Charlotte, Fred’s sister, took over the house when Sarah died in 1934, aged 82. Charlotte, who had no further children, died in Winchester in 1967, aged 83.

Fred’s brother Alfred also served with the Hampshire Regiment during the war, reaching the rank of Lance-Sergeant. However, he did not serve overseas. Alfred had married Birmingham-born Kate Webb in Winchester in 1913 and the couple had two children. They continued to live at 21, Western Road after the war (it is Alfred’s address in the WWSR) but had moved to 3, Kingsgate Street by 1939, when Alfred was working as a greengrocer, fruiterer and market nurseryman. It is not known when Alfred died.

Several of Fred Richards’s other siblings retained links with Winchester after the war. Phoebe married bricklayer Edward Mills in 1896 and the couple had two children. In 1901 they were living at 6, Saxon Road, Hyde and ten years later at 14, Owens Road. Phoebe died in Winchester in 1935 at the age of 59.

Jane Richards married Frederick Brealey, a baker, in Amesbury, Wiltshire, in June 1905. The couple, who had five children, lived in London and Devon but were back in Winchester by 1939. Jane was living at 63, Portal Road when she died, aged 66, in May 1947. Anne Richards married builder’s labourer William Chivers in Alton in April 1904. Anne gave birth to two children in Alton, Hampshire, but the family were living at 41, Water Lane, Winchester, in 1911. However, Anne moved back to Alton where she died in 1916, aged 44.

Winifred Richards married Ernest Avery, a domestic gardener, in Winchester in November 1913. The couple, who had one daughter, were living in Dorking, Surrey, in 1939, but Winifred returned to Winchester where she passed away in March 1983 at the age of 91.

Emma was the only one of Fred’s siblings to completely sever her ties with Winchester. After marrying Henry Lee in the city in January 1896, she moved to Kent and later Essex and had six children. Emma died in Chelmsford in December 1948, aged 74.

Medals and Memorials for Frederick Charles Richards

Private Frederick Charles Richards was entitled to the 1914-15 Star, the British War Medal and the Victory Medal. He is commemorated on the Nisibin Memorial at Baghdad (North Gate) War Cemetery, Iraq (PR. Nisibin Mem. 250). His name also appears on the memorials at St Paul’s, St Matthew’s and St Thomas’s churches, Winchester.

Researcher – DEREK WHITFIELD