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OUR WAR MEMORIAL |
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This article was first published by the Pirton Magazine in July/August 2006, and is provided courtesy of the magazine, the editor Derek Jarrett. Further acknowledgments appear at the end of the article.
Private Frederick Odell
1918: The eleventh hour of the eleventh month brought to an end the killing of the First World War, yet immense suffering and grieving continued. Three quarters of a million men who had left British shores to fight, never returned. For most people in Britain there was great rejoicing; but for those who had lost loved ones, grief. Spare a thought for the 40,000 British men who returned home having lost at least one limb and the thousands who then suffered a life of horrendous mental illness. Pirton shared the same joys and the same grief as other villages and towns; many welcoming home their loved ones, whilst others could only mourn their personal loss.
But for one Pirton family, there was a terrible shadow which cast neither joy nor grief. Private Frederick Odell, whose parents John and Mary lived in a small cottage in Silver Street (now Royal Oak Lane), had heard of their son receiving terrible injuries, of being paralysed from the waist down, and of being sent to King George’s Hospital in Ilford. Their pain and the lingering agony of their son continued for five months. He died on 23rd April 1919. He was nineteen; the final name on our WW1 War Memorial,
Frederick had joined the army in 1917 or early 1918 and had already suffered the loss of his brother Arthur who was killed on the Somme in February 1918. Towards the end of the War, Frederick was terribly injured.
His family had long lived in Pirton. Frederick grandparents were born in the village back in the first decade of the nineteenth century and his parents, John and Mary (nee Weeden) had at least nine children, including Arthur born in 1896 and Frederick on 4th July 1899. For most of John and Mary’s married life, the family lived at number 2 Silver Street. This was almost certainly what is now part of either no.10 or 12 Royal Oak Lane; most attractive houses now, but then a small cottage for such a large family.
The old Pirton School registers in the late 1800’s resound with the name Odell but it was not until the eve of the First World War, 1913, that Frederick left the school. He probably added as best he could to the meagre family income by working on a local farm. Talk at home was much around the War greatly prompted when his older brother, Arthur, joined up as a territorial with the 1st Hertfordshire Regiment in 1914. Two years later, in January 1916, conscription was introduced due to the ever diminishing number of volunteers and the many deaths in Europe. Whether Frederick waited for conscription or followed in his brother’s footsteps by volunteering is not known. It was certainly not until late 1917 or early in the final year of the War that he became a soldier. At the age when many present day boys are studying for ‘A Levels’ Frederick became Private G/82152 of the 26th Regiment Royal Fusiliers, to face the hell of mud, shells and death.
Of his war-time experiences, almost certainly no more than a year, nothing is known. It may well be that he joined the Regiment just after they had seen service in Italy and was with them when they landed in France in March 1918. However, so confused did the Regiments become, with raw recruits quickly taking the place of dead men, and records being lost in the bombings of London in the Second World War, that certainties are impossible to know.
Somewhere in north-west Europe this young man, still in his teens, was terribly injured. Whether by bullet or shell we do not know, but he was critically injured. In the chaos of the last stages of the War, Frederick was brought back to England, paralysed from his waist down and with other life-threatening injuries. He was sent to King George’s Hospital, probably the one of that name in Ilford.
With so many hospitals desperately trying to cope with war-injured men it seems that St. George’s could not match his needs. As a human wreck of the Great War he was discharged from the Army on 11th December 1918 and transferred to the Royal Star and Garter Home in Richmond, Surrey. The records of the Home tell us that he was admitted as a ‘paraplegic’, giving no detail of injuries.
The
Royal Star and Garter Home started its life with concern in royal circles about
the future of badly disabled ex-servicemen; it became a hospital for badly
paralysed soldiers. Previously a hotel serving the wealthy, it opened as a
hospital with 65 patients in 1916. The list of servicemen who were in the Home
for the last two years of the War and beyond is long. Many were so badly injured
that they were never able to leave, living there for decades. Some were able to
return home, but tragically, after five months in the Home, Frederick died there
on 23rd April 1919. He was still not twenty years old.
How often his parents or others in his large family were able to visit the Home in Surrey we can only imagine; whether Frederick was able to recognise them we do not know. The four months following his admission to the Star and Garter Home must have been a terrible ordeal for Mary and John, his parents.
Whilst there is so little recorded about Frederick’s life we do know something of his funeral. Ninety five year old Grace Maidment, who now lives in Shillington Road, used to live on the corner of High Street and Royal Oak Lane. She can remember as an eight year old how, looking over the garden fence, she saw a gun-carriage draped with the Union Jack and drawn by horses making its solemn way down Walnut Tree Road victim. Frederick Odell’s body was conveyed to his parents’ home and thence for burial in St. Mary’s churchyard.
-(2004).JPG)
A
monument inscription in St. Mary’s churchyard reads: ‘Our dear boys Pte
Frederick Odell, died of wounds 23 April 1919 aged 19, also Lce/Cpl
Arthur Odell, killed in action in France 26 February 1918 aged 21’.
Mary Odell, mother of two sons killed in this ‘War to end all wars’, died 13th February 1926 aged 66, and their father, John, on 12th October 1939, aged 83.Both, like their two sons, are buried in St. Mary’s churchyard.
As was described in the May 2005 Magazine when writing of Arthur Odell, a number of Pirton links with the family remain:
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Colin Males of Pollards Way is the grandson of Robert Odell, Frederick and Arthur’s brother. |
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Arthur’s eldest brother, James was almost certainly in the navy, survived the War and returned to live in He had a daughter, possibly Ena, who moved to Letchworth, but trace has been lost. |
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Kath Watts, a well-loved villager who died a few years ago was the daughter of Jane who was Frederick’s eldest sister. |
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Frederick’s youngest sister, married and became Marjorie Cherry, living in Holwell. She had a daughter, Margaret Cousins, who is believed to still live in the area. |
**For their help with this article we thank:, Grace Maidment, Clare Baines, Colin Males, Patsy Willis of the Royal Star & Garter Home, Jonty Wild www.pirton.org.uk, Helen Hofton, Lynda Smith www.roll-of-honour.com,, Shirley Houghton & Hitchin Museum
Points of contact are:
Pirton Website Jonty Wild via jontywild@pirton.org.uk
We would like to ask for your help, if you have any information, photographs or artefacts:
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For the remaining men yet to be included in a magazine article. |
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For any new information on those already published or following publication. |
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For men who survived the war. |
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If you have any photographs of soldiers from that war who you believe may be related to Pirton, but don't know who they are |
Please get in touch jontywild@pirton.org.uk
Also if anyone would like copy of any Pirton WW1 war grave or memorial please contact Jonty Wild, digital copies for personal use will be provided free of charge to relatives, photographs can be provided for a small charge.
