BORN HULL 1889. SON OF JOHN WILLIAM BROTHERTON & LAVINIA REDFEARN, OF 25, HILL STREET, HULL.
HIS WIFE, ETHEL (COTTON) & FOUR CHILDREN LIVED AT 4, IVY COTTAGES, HODGSON STREET, HULL (HDM 14/02/1919). EX FLOUR MILLER FOR MESSRS A & R APPLETON, HULL. ONE CHILD DIED OF INFLUENZA A WEEK BEFORE FRANK WAS KILLED IN ACTION. HIS DEATH WAS REPORTED IN THE HULL DAILY MAIL ON 6TH NOVEMBER 1918, WITH HIS PHOTOGRAPH. *
Hull Pals Memorial Post. Private, FRANK BROTHERTON 3/6493. Born in July 1889, Frank was the eldest of six children to John and Lavinia Brotherton of 14 Prince of Wales Terrace, St Luke’s Street, Hull. His family was complicated. Lavinia had lost her first husband and Frank had three half-siblings from her first marriage. Of their six children, two died in childhood, and Lavinia herself passed away in 1903. Frank’s father remarried having another three children by his second wife. Frank himself had married Ethel Thirsk (nee Cotton) in October 1914. She had also lost a husband and brought three of her own children to the marriage. The couple had co-habited prior to their marriage and it is possible that they wed to secure a War Pension in the event of Frank being killed in the trenches. Frank went into service in the 3rd Battalion East Yorkshire Regiment, a Reserve battalion which remained stationed in East Yorkshire helping train recruits throughout the war. Either Frank volunteered for service in Flanders, or the army came calling when manpower ran low, either way he was transferred to the 10th and landed on the Western Front. He was killed in action, on 29th September 1918, as the Pals attacked German positions in Ploegsteert Wood. He is buried at Underhill Farm Cemetery; Frank Brotherton was 29 years old.
