Name
Frederick William Sheppard
12 December 1886
Conflict
First World War
Date of Death / Age
12/06/1917
30
Rank, Service Number & Service Details
Second Lieutenant
Royal Sussex Regiment
12th Bn.
Awards: Service Medals/Honour Awards
British War and Victory medals
Cemetery/Memorial: Name/Reference/Country
POELCAPELLE BRITISH CEMETERY
LVII. D. 2.
Belgium
Headstone Inscription
None
UK & Other Memorials
Not on the Bishop's Stortford memorials (*1)
Pre War
Frederick William Sheppard was born in Ipswich, Suffolk on 12 December 1886, the son of William and Jane Sheppard, and was baptised on 30 January 1887 at Exning St Mary, Suffolk. He was one of six children.
On the 1901 Census the family were living at Ivy Cottages, Bovingdon, Hertfordshire, where his father was working as a gardener domestic and Frederick was a baker's apprentice. His parents remained in Bovingdon in 1911 but Frederick was living in London and working as a footman for Charles and Ethel Burn and their two children at 48 Cadogan Place, Chelsea. His place of birth was recorded as Exning, Cambs. (Suffolk).
He married Annie Howard Watson in 1915 in Ware, Hertfordshire and their son Desmond was born in June 1916 in Lambourn, Berks, where her mother lived.
Wartime Service
He initially enlisted with the London Regiment, serving with the 3/16th Battalion as Lance Sergeant, reg. no. 3293, but later obtained a commission as a 2nd Lieutenant serving with the 12th Battalion, Royal Sussex Regiment.
Frederick was killed in action on 12 June 1917 and originally buried in a German grave at Ostnieuwkerke, Belgium. At the end of the war his body was recovered and re-interred in Poelkapelle British Cemetery, Belgium.
Additional Information
His widow received a war gratuity of £6 and pay owing of £26 2s 6d. A pension card exists but gives no details of a pension for herself or their son but does state that she later remarried to Edward Page in 1928.
*1 He is also commemorated on the family grave in Bishop's Stortford Old Cemetery, his part of the inscription reads:
" . . . ALSO OF SON IN LAW LIEUT. FREDERICK WILLIAM SHEPPARD WHO DIED IN GERMAN HANDS JUNE 12, 1917 AGED 30 YEARS
GOD TAKE CARE OF US ALL"
Acknowledgments
Brenda Palmer
