Other Information
Husband of Mrs. E. Lockhart, of Caroline Court, 1058, Nelson St., Vancouver, British Columbia.
While he was a boy his family moved to Alston, Warwickshire and then to 21 Rope Walk, Ipswich, where by 1891 he was an Errand Boy.
Although his service record has not survived, it appears he enlisted at Ipswich into the regular army as a Sapper, Royal Engineers, probably about 1895.
They trained him as a carpenter.
He does not seem to appear in the 1901 census and may have been overseas.
He was posted to Carlingnose Barracks sometime prior to 1909, when he married Helen (or Ellen, sometimes called “Nelly”) Syme of Battery Road, North Queensferry.
They had a son Frederick, born in 1910 and baptised in the United Free Church, North Queensferry in October 1911.
He may have been posted to India or Ceylon (Sri Lanka) in 1911.
His wife and child may well be the Mrs Lockhart and child who sailed from Liverpool to Montreal on 11 October 1912 on the SS Virginian, Allan Line.
When war was declared, the War Office issued orders for mobilisation of the British Expeditionary Force in accordance with the existing plan.
The 13 Field Companies then at home on a peacetime establishment were reorganised to create twelve Field Companies, two for each of the six Divisions of the BEF. Men required to bring these Companies up to war establishment units came from the RE Training Depot at Aldershot (mounted men) and the RE Reserve Battalion and Depot Companies at Chatham (dismounted men). The 12 Field Company were part of the 6th Division.
His medal index card shows that he first went to serve on the Western Front on the 12 August 1915 disembarking in France. He died of wounds, apparently in Etaples, which was a major base and hospital area.
