Featherstone, Frank.

Hull Pals Memorial Post. CORPORAL FRANK FEATHERSTONE 11/826. Born July 1893, Frank was the fifth of six children to William John and Lavinia Featherstone of 61 Kings Bench Street, Hull and 329, Hessle Road, Hull (War Pension address). His mother died when he was very small and his father never remarried. A Compositor by trade, Frank queued outside City Hall to enlist on 10th September 1914 when the war was still a big adventure, and young men with dreams of derring-do wanted to play their part before it was all over. Frank joined the 11th Battalion East Yorkshire Regiment, ‘The Tradesmen’, 2nd Hull Pals. He trained throughout 1915 and sailed to Egypt that December where he formed a garrison in Alexandria, stationed to defend the Suez Canal from any attack by the Turkish Army. He arrived on the Western Front in March 1916. Frank was wounded in the abdomen during the Somme campaign on 31st July 1916 and was evacuated from the front line to 13th Casualty Clearing Station where he died of his wounds the following day. Bleeding to death from an abdominal wound was a million miles from the glorified patriotism of Kipling and his ilk, though he too had realised his folly and lost his only son at Loos in September 1915 causing him to write of the war:
“If any question why we died
Tell them because our father lied.”
Frank is buried at Bethune Town Cemetery; he was 23 years old. offered a weekly war pension of 5 shillings for the loss of his son, his father, William refused a war pension and did not pursue the claim.