FREDERICK HENRY SCOFFIELD

Photograph courtesy of Erica Burrows.

Born: 1892, Ipswich.

Died: 25th December 1916; age 24; KiA.

Residence: 6, Bulwer Road, Ipswich.

Employed: as a Checker on the Great Eastern Railway. Entered the company on the 5th November 1908.

Enlistment Location: Ipswich.

Rank: Rifleman; Service Number: C/1315

Regiment: King’s Royal Rifle Corps, 17th Battalion (British Empire League).

Following training, Frederick landed at Le Havre France with the 17th Battalion, on the 8th of March 1916. Being wounded on the 20th August 1916 in the preparation for the attack on Ancre Heights.

Medals Awarded: Victory & British War.

Grave Reference:

II.W.5.

Essex Farm Cemetery,

West-Vlaanderen,

Belgium.

Relatives Notified & Address: Son of Henry T.G. & Rebekah Scoffield, of 6, Bulwer Road, Ipswich.

 Image from 1917 Suffolk Chronicle & Mercury newspaper 

CENSUS

1901   45, Dillwyn Road, Ipswich.

 Frederick was 8 years old and living with his parents & siblings.

Henry Thomas Gardiner Scoffield, 41, a Postman, born St. Matthew’s, Ipswich.

Rebekah Scoffield (nee Jeffery), 38, born Stowmarket, Suffolk.

Edith Rebecca Scoffield, 13, born Ipswich.

Ethel May Scoffield, 10, born Ipswich.

Arthur William Scoffield, 6, born Ipswich.

Ernest Edward Scoffield, 1, born Ipswich.

1911   6, Bulwer Road, Ipswich.

 Frederick was 18 years old, a Railway Porter. he was living with his parents & brothers.

Henry, 51, a Postman – G.P.O.

Rebekah, 48.

Ernest, 11.

Alfred Sidney Scoffield, 7, born Ipswich.

In 1909, Frederick helped to move the 16ft 10ins Somalian giraffe from Ipswich Railway Station to the Ipswich Museum, in High Street.

Soldiers’ Effects to Rebekah Scoffield – mother.

Frederick is also remembered on the Great Eastern Memorial, Liverpool Street, London and at St. Matthew’s Church, Ipswich, and on the war memorial at SPRINGFIELD SCHOOL, Ipswich.

 Mr. Arthur Scoffield at his 100th birthday party. Arthur a D-Day veteran of the Royal Engineers bomb disposal team cleared Juno beach while under fire allowing the 3rd Canadians to take Juno sector and push on into Normandy. Arthurs’s uncle died in 1916 on Christmas Day and is commemorated on the Ipswich War Memorial. Arthur produced one of his treasured items, a cigarette case from his uncle which had been sent home with his personal effects after it had been collected from his body.

King’s Royal Rifle Corps, 17th Battalion

Margaret – My husband and I used to take battlefield tours to Belgium and always laid crosses on the graves of the men who all died on that day at Essex farm and they were always referred to as the Christmas Day boys. It wasn’t until on one occasion we looked in the book to see where these boys came from to find one was from Ipswich which made it more poignant from our point of view as we were from Suffolk and the fact he was in the Kings  Royal Rifle Corps hadn’t made us think that he was a local man.