| Description | Work completed by volunteer includes the following information:
Fred Otter enlisted in the army at Stockton-on-Tees on 21 Nov 1914. He became a rifleman in the King’s Royal Rifle Corps and served in the 16th Battalion, known as the Church Lads’ Brigade Battalion. Fred was a member of the Beverley CLB from Oct 1910 until Sep 1912, achieving the rank of Corporal and being considered as a youth of good character by the person in charge, Neville Hobson. He was a drummer in the CLB band. Fred trained at Clipstone Camp in Nottinghamsshire and arrived in France on 16 Nov 1915. Fred spent the entire war in France, he went unscathed in actions on the Somme in 1916, at Arras and Passchendaele in 1917 and on the Lys, the Hindenburg Line and on the final advance into Picardy in 1918. He left the army in May 1919 and was awarded the War and Victory Medals along with the 1914-15 Star.
Fred was born in Hull the 9 Feb 1893 but was baptised and confirmed at St Nicholas’ Church, Beverley on 5 Apr 1906. He was the eldest of eight children born to Frederick Robert and Gertrude Otter (nee Longman), who was born in Hull. His father was an “iron turner” and the family lived at 40 Beaver Road, Beverley. Fred attended St Nicholas’ School and then became a shop assistant in Hull selling boots and shoes. After the war Fred stayed in this trade and by 1939 was the manager of an unnamed boot and shoe retailer in Leeds. Living at 50 Dawlish Mount, Leeds. He also served as a Special Constable. In 1921 he married Gladys Roberts, born in 1898, in Leeds. They had two children Joan born 1924 and Kenneth born 1931. He died in Leeds in 1986. Gladys had died in 1971.
Includes photograph, information taken from census, military records, Commonwealth War Graves, newspapers |