Name
Frederick Charles Chalkley
Conflict
First World War
Date of Death / Age
Rank, Service Number & Service Details
139376
Machine Gun Corps
37th Battalion
Awards: Service Medals/Honour Awards
Not Yet Researched
Cemetery/Memorial: Name/Reference/Country
Headstone Inscription
Not Researched
UK & Other Memorials
Biography
Frederick Chalkley was born in 1882 at Stevenage. He was one of four children born to William and Hannah Chalkley. The couple had two sons and two daughters, and William worked as an Agricultural Labourer. By 1901 Frederick lived at Bedmond Hill Farm, Railway Terrace, Abbots Langley, and was working as a Milkman for the Farmer. In the 1911 Census Frederick still worked as a Milkman on a Farm, and was living at Porridge Hill, Bedmond, with his wife, Ellen and three year old son, Frederick. The Abbots Langley Parish Magazine reported a second son born to the couple on 27th September 1914.
It was not until November 1916 that Frederick was recorded in the Abbots Langley Parish Magazine Roll of Honour, serving with the 3rd Bedfordshire’s. The 3rd Battalion of the Bedfordshire Regiment remained in the UK throughout the War. Men were mobilised to the unit at their HQ at Bedford or to bases at Harwich and Felixstowe, and then sent as drafts to replenish battalions at the Front. It was likely that Frederick joined the 6th Battalion sometime in 1916, as he was regularly recorded with this unit in the Parish Roll of Honour through to the end of the War.
However the Absent Voter Record for Autumn 1918 indicated that Frederick was serving as a Private with the 37th Battalion of the Machine Gun Corps, so at some point before the end of the War he had transferred from the 6th Bedfordshire’s, and this move had not been recorded in the Parish Records.
Frederick Chalkley survived the War.
Additional Information
Formerly 6th Battalion Bedfordshire Regiment
Acknowledgments
Roger Yapp - www.backtothefront.org
