2/1st Royal Gloucestershire Hussars (Gloucestershire Yeomanry)
Frederick George Wasley was born in Brockworth, near Gloucester in 1882 and his parents were William Wasley (1856-1936), a bricklayer and his wife Anne (née Packett: 1857-?).
Frederick was the second eldest of nine children, of whom seven were living in 1911.
In the latter half of 1902 Frederick married Annie Swinford (1881-1934) in Stroud District.
At the time of the 1911 Census the couple were living at Bond End, Upton St Leonards. They had one child, Hector Francis, born on 20 December 1902, he died in 1925.
Frederick’s occupation was shown as a bricklayer.
Very little documentary evidence of Frederick’s Army service has survived. It is known that he enlisted in Gloucester into the 2/1st Gloucestershire Yeomanry (Royal Gloucestershire Hussars) but it is not known when. That unit was formed in September 1914 and did not go abroad.
In July 1916 it was converted into a cyclist unit and located in Kent before moving to Ipswich. The unit combined with the Worcestershire Yeomanry to become the 12th Gloucester and Worcester Yeomanry Cyclist Regiment.
Private Frederick George Wasley died at the barracks in Ipswich, Suffolk on 20 January 1917 aged 36.
A recently released Pension Record Card states that his death was due to ‘natural causes whilst on active service’.
He was brought to Brockworth for burial in the churchyard of St George’s Church on 25 January 1917. His grave, just below the pathway to the church door, has a private headstone. The inscription is on a stone plinth, which once supported a now broken stone cross.
Research by Graham Adams 22 March 2020