PEOPLE IN PORTSMOUTH

 

Lives Lived and Lives Lost - Portsmouth and the Great War

FREDERICK NEWMAN
 
The National Roll of the Great War lists both Frederick Newman and his father, also named Frederick, both men having served in the Machine Gun Corps. Frederick, the father, was the only one to have survived the war.
 
Frederick snr. was born at Findon, Sussex in 1870, the son of agricultural labourer William Charles Newman and his wife Elizabeth. He married the 22 year old, Portsmouth born, Elizabeth Pearce in 1894. She was the daughter of shipwright Henry Pearce and his wife Sarah. The newly married couple had by the time of the 1901 census set up home at 13 Abercrombie Street with their three children, Beatrice (b, 1894), Frederick jnr. (b. 1895) and Francis (b. 1900).
 
By 1911 the family had moved to 17 Plymouth Street, Southsea whilst Frederick snr. was described as a fitter's mate at the gas works and Frederick jnr was a yard boy, also at the gas works. Neither of them enlisted at the outbreak of the Great War, indeed Frederick jnr. did not sign up until March 1917 and his father followed a month later. Frederick jnr saw action at Cambrai and in November 1917 was reported wounded and missing, his father was also at Cambrai, survived and was eventually demobilised in September 1919.
 
FURTHER INFORMATION
 
The Commonwealth War Graves Commission (CWGC) list Frederick Newman, Private (102681), 154th Coy, Machine Gun Corps (Infantry), died 22/11/1917. Remembered on the Cambrai Memorial, Louverval (Panel 12 and 13.). Son of Frederick and Elizabeth Newman, of 17, Plymouth St., Southsea, Portsmouth.
 
Frederick Newman is also remembered on the Cenotaph in Guildhall Square. He is listed in the 'National Roll of the Great War' Section X, p165 (his father is named on p166).
 
Tim Backhouse
March 2015