BORN HULL 14/02/1889. SON OF GEORGE HENRY GILLIATT & MARY ELIZABETH TURNER. MARRIED 1913. WIFE CLARISSA MEARA AND TWO SONS LIVED ABOVE. ORIGINAL HULL PAL. DIED OF WOUNDS IN GERMANY AS A PRISONER OF WAR.
Hull Pals Memorial Post. PRIVATE FRED GILLIATT 12/1252. Born 1889, Fred was the youngest of four children to George and Mary Gilliatt of 8 Walcott Street, Hull. A Fish Worker on the docks by trade, he married Clarissa Meara in the Summer of 1913 and the couple lived at 83 Trinity Street. Fred enlisted at City Hall on 21st December 1914 originally joining the 12 Battalion East Yorkshire Regiment, ‘The Sportsmen’, 3rd Hull Pals; Fred and Clarissa’s eldest son, Fred Jnr was just a few months old. Fred served first in Egypt and then in the trenches of the Western Front where he survived both the Somme and Oppy Wood before he was wounded and captured during the German Spring Offensive. Clarissa Gilliatt had given birth to their second son, George, in 1916 and was left fighting her own battles on the home front. It must have been some comfort then that after the army had informed her Fred was missing she received word from him in May 1918 to say he was well but in a German hospital. I’m struggling to imagine the relief that her husband was at least out of the trenches and, for now at least, safe. Cruel then to receive news in August 1918 that Fred had died of complications from a gunshot wound through the side of his face and had been buried at Mons Communal Cemetery. His official date of death is 8th April 1918, he must already have been dead by the time Clarissa received that first telegram.
Mrs Pat Lount showed her grandfather’s participation during the war at the SKEALS local study group. The man in question was Private Fred Gilliatt of the 11th East Yorkshire Regiment. (Regimental Number 12/1252) On display was his enlistment document (December 1914), notifcation of missing and wounded (July 1917), two feld service post cards, the information that he had died of his wounds on 8th April 1918, notifcation from the Red Cross on Sept 1918, notifcation of his pension – February 1919, and the notifcation
of his place of burial in France – November 1920, and the award of his medals.
