Private Frederick Patrick

Private Frederick Thomas Patrick, 1st/4th ( Territorial ) Battalion, Northumberland Fusiliers. He died of wounds whilst a Prisoner of War in Germany on 7th September 1918, aged 17. He was the son of Mr J. and Mrs E. Patrick of Goswick Railway Station, Beal, Northumberland and is buried in Cologne South Cemetery. He had been wounded on the Aisne on the 26th May during the German Spring Offensives.  Before enlisting ( underage ) he had been employed as a clerk with the North East Railway Company. The Official Notice of his death was not received by his parents until after the Armistice was signed. The photograph shows the impressive Memorial raised to the 50th ( Northumbrian ) Division of which the Battalion was part until July 1918 when it was reduced to cadre and assigned to lines of communication duties. It was erected near the village of Wieltje in the Ypres Salient where nearby on the 26th April 1915 the Division had fought its first action of the War only days after landing on the Continent.