Frederick Reginald Hawkins was the fourth of eight children born to John Henry Hawkins and his wife, Frances.[1]

His father was a stone mason, and his mother, Frances, was the daughter of William White, a farmer.

His parents married in 1882 and lived at Hardington Marsh, close to Frances’s parents, for about the first eight years of their marriage.[2] Frederick Reginald was born there on 12 December 1886. He was usually known as Reginald or Reggie rather than Frederick.

In about 1890, his parents moved to a six-room cottage at Hardington Moor.[3]

On 5 October 1898, young Reggie suffered concussion and a broken arm when he fell forty feet to the ground from an oak tree in Hardington Moor plantation.[4]

When he left school, he worked as an errand boy.[5] He later became a carpenter.[6]

His grandmother, Emma White, lived with Reginald’s family from about 1910 until her death on 15 January 1915.[7]

By November 1915, Reginald and his brother, Albert, served with the Grenadier Guards, a prestigious infantry regiment of the British Army.[8]

On 27 September 1915, Reginald was killed in action in France.[9] He was 28. His name is on the Loos Memorial at Dud Corner Cemetery.[10]

Albert survived the war and lived until 1964.[11] He had two children: Leonard Kenneth and Marion.[12]

References

[1] RG14, piece 14381; family reconstitution.

[2] Civil Registration Marriage Index; Hardington baptism register; voters’ lists; Guardian valuations.

[3] Hardington baptism register; voters’ lists; Guardian valuations; RG12, piece 1895, folio 109, page 11; RG14, piece 14381.

[4] Pulman’s Weekly News and Advertiser, 11 October 1898, p.6.

[5] RG13, piece 2297, folio 46, page 12.

[6] RG14, piece 14381.

[7] Voters’ lists; Western Chronicle 29 January 1915 p. 5.

[8] Western Chronicle, 6 November 1914, p.6.

[9] Soldiers Died in the Great War, 1914-1919.

[10] Find a Grave.

[11] Civil Registration Death Index.

[12] 1939 Register; Civil Registration Death Index.