1914-1918 First World War Centenary

19 October 2018

“HE GAVE HIS LIFE AT DUTY’S CALL”

Frank Leslie Hall from Ivy Lodge Farm, Great Winchcombe, Gloucestershire was born on 3 June 1896, the son of A. Lee Hall, a Chemist and Farmer. He attended Cheltenham Grammar School.

He enrolled on the Harper Adams Diploma course on 7 October 1912, aged 17 years, with the intention of training as a farmer or estate agent. He was one of the few students at the time to also take the NDA (Part I) in 1914 and probably left the College in July 1914, although the exact date is not recorded.

https://www.cwgc.org/find-war-dead/casualty/453551/hall,-frank-leslie/

He died on 4 March 1917 Age 20 and is remembered with honour at Dranoutre Military Cemetery (Cemetery/memorial reference: I. H. 21)

Dranoutre Churchyard in Belgium was used for Commonwealth burials from October 1914 when the military cemetery was begun and was used by fighting units and field ambulances until March 1918. Dranoutre Military Cemetery now contains 458 Commonwealth burials of the First World War.

https://www.cwgc.org/find-a-cemetery/cemetery/52300/dranoutre-military-cemetery/

Postscript: This generation did not only lose their sons in the war. His brother Edgar Lee Hall died on 31 October 1918 at Winchcombe age 34. His death certificate records the cause of death as influenza and septic pneumonia. His father was present at his death. This was the time of the deadly influenza pandemic which claimed millions of lives worldwide including over a quarter of a million in the UK.

Ten years previously another brother, Sidney Oughton Hall had died at sea in 1907 age 16. He had been aboard the steam ship Grindon Hall, which was launched only two years previously and posted missing on 4 December 1907 in the Black Sea between Sulina and the Bosphorus. The ship was carrying a cargo of maize and barley for Glasgow, and its disappearance with the loss of 26 hands was debated in the House of Lords on 6 July 1908.

http://sunderlandships.com/view.php?ref=101171

https://api.parliament.uk/historic-hansard/lords/1908/jul/06/missing-british-ships