Introduction
Frederick Reginald Hawkins is one of the village’s valiant war dead of 1914-18 and is commemorated on the memorial in the church. He was the fourth man from the village to lose his life in the war.
Childhood
Frederick was born at Hardington on 12 December 1886, the fourth of eight children born to John Henry Hawkins and his wife, Frances.[1] He was usually known as Reginald or Reggie.
His father was a stone mason, while his mother, Frances, was the daughter of William White, a farmer.
John and Frances married in 1882 and initially lived at Hardington Marsh, close to Frances’s parents, for about the first eight years of their marriage.[2] In about 1890, they moved to a six-room cottage at Hardington Moor.[3]
On 5 October 1898, young Reggie suffered a concussion and a broken arm when he fell forty feet from an oak tree in Hardington Moor plantation.[4]
When he left school, he worked as an errand boy and later became a carpenter.[5]
His grandmother, Emma White, lived with the Hawkins family from about 1910 until her death on 15 January 1915.[6]
First World War
By November 1914, Reginald and his brother, Albert, served with the Grenadier Guards, a prestigious infantry regiment of the British Army.[7] Reginald served with the 4th battalion, and his regimental number was 19715.
Reginald was killed in action in France on 27 September 1915 at the age of 28.[8] His body was never found, and his name is inscribed on the Loos Memorial at Dud Corner Cemetery.[9] His outstanding pay of £8 1s 7d was divided equally between his mother and two sisters, as was a war gratuity of £3 10s paid after the war.[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; RG14, piece 14381.
[6] Voters’ lists; Western Chronicle 29 January 1915 p. 5.
[7] Western Chronicle, 6 November 1914, p.6.
[8] Soldiers Died in the Great War, 1914-1919.
[9] Army Registers of Soldiers’ Effects, 1901-1929; Find a Grave.
[10] Army Registers of Soldiers’ Effects, 1901-1929.
[11] Civil Registration Death Index.
[12] 1939 Register; Civil Registration Death Index.