BORN WALKINGTON, EAST YORKSHIRE 1899. FIFTH SON OF TOM & SARAH ANN HAYTON, NORTH GATE, WALKINGTON. ENLISTED AGED 16 YEARS OLD. WAS RECALLED BY PARENTS & RE-ENLISTED AGED 18. HDM 12/4/18. EX 26498 EYR. HE IS PHOTOGRAPHED WITH HIS SERVING FIVE BROTHERS AND TWO BROTHERS IN LAW IN THE HULL DAILY MAIL ON THE 23RD DECEMBER 1915. *
Frank Hayton was born in 1899, his father was Thomas Hayton, a farm labourer and mother Sarah Ann Hayton; he had two brothers Thomas and Harold and a sister Miriam. In 1911 he was still a scholar at school and would have well remembered his headmaster Mr Truscott’s departure from the school in 1911. On leaving school he worked for Mr. Cook at Broadgate Farm as third lad. He enlisted when only sixteen, and had been in France five months before being claimed by his parents as underage, immediately on attaining his 18th birthday he re-enlisted. The news of his death was conveyed in a letter to his parents from his lieutenant who paid tribute to his gallantry and devotion to duty and to the esteem in which he was held. He was killed instantly by a shot through the heart as the Germans attacked Arras on 27th March 1918. The Hayton’s were Chapel people and several members of the family are commemorated in the Jubilee Chapel in Walkington. Frank is also commemorated in the chapel along with John Cross and Harry Ezard. The Machine Gun Corp (M.G.C.) was formed during the war and disbanded in 1922 and it is probable that Frank Hayton trained at the Machine Gun Training Centre at Grantham. A total of 170,500 officers and men served in the M.G.C. of which 62,049 were killed, wounded or reported missing. He is buried at the Pozieres Memorial, Picardie, France. The Memorial to the Machine Gun Corp is in Hyde Park in London.
