Gloucestershire Regiment
Frederick Francis Tyler was born at Maisemore near Gloucester in 1895 and was the eldest son of Edwin and Alice Tyler.
According to the 1911 Census the couple had five children, one of whom had died by the time of the census.
At this time the family lived at 82 Alma Place, Gloucester and Frederick is shown as being a single man and a machinist with a ‘foreign timber importer’. This was Price, Walker & Co Ltd which was a well-established company, with sites at both Gloucester and Sharpness on the canal side. It would appear that his father was employed by the same company as a ‘deal porter’.
Fred appears to have been a Territorial soldier who initially had the number 1790TF but that changed to 240219, when the Territorial Force battalion members were renumbered in 1917. The new number indicates that he was serving with the 5th Battalion, Gloucestershire Regiment.
According to his Medal Index Card he was posted to France on 25 June 1915 but as no Service Record has survived we are reliant upon information given in the report of his funeral in the Gloucester Journal of 5 May 1917.
Evidently after he arrived in France he participated in several actions and was wounded in the head. His name is amongst the wounded listed in the Gloucester Journal of 12 May 1917 (by which time he had died of wounds).
He was repatriated to the Military Hospital in Sheffield, where he died on 24 April 1917, age 23.
He was afforded a ‘semi-military’ funeral, with a firing party and the sounding of the Last Post.
The newspaper report said that his father was unavoidably absent in France (his unit is uncertain but unlikely to have been infantry, given his age was 49) and his brother was in hospital.
The family address was given as 53 Alma Place, Gloucester.
Private Frederick Francis Tyler was buried in Gloucester Old Cemetery, where a CWGC headstone marks his grave.
Research by Graham Adams 25 June 2014