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Frederick Selwyn Fendall

Frederick Selwyn Fendall

FREDERICK SELWYN FENDALL (1894-1916)
Service Record No. 11/764
Born on Christmas day 1894 at the Rangiora Parsonage, Frederick Selwyn was the eldest child of Rev. Frederick Philip Fendall (1860-1929) and his wife Emma (nee York) (1860-1941). His paternal grandfather was Walpole Chesshyre Fendall (1830-1913), the Canterbury colonist who had arrived in 1850 on the vessel Sir George Seymour, one of the First Four Ships, and founded the suburb known as Fendall Town (Fendalton).

After successfully sitting his Junior Civil Service examination in 1911, Frederick left Rangiora for Taranaki where he worked for J.J. Patterson on Patterson’s dairy farm at Manaia.

 

Enlistng on October 25th 1914, Frederick’s attestation papers show that he falsified his age by a year stating that he was born in December of 1893. And so, not two months later, on December 14th, having joined the Wellington Mounted Rifles he departed for Egypt on the Troopship ‘Willochra’.
Embarking for the Dardanelles in June of 1915, he was reported wounded at Anzac Cove and evacuated to Malta where he was then transferred to King George’s Hospital in London arriving there in November.

Recovered enough to be discharged from King George’s in January 1916 he spent the next few months at the NZ Convalescent Hospital in Essex and in March was assessed as being fit enough to re-join his unit.
Returning to Egypt, Frederick then transferred from the Mounted Rifles to the 2nd Brigade Ammunition Column, a unit attached to the NZ Field Artillery Brigade where he immediately departed Alexandria on the Troopship ‘Eboe’ bound for the Western Front.

Six months later on November 8th 1916, whilst on the battle fields of the Somme, Frederick was hospitalised with enteric fever. He was admited to No. 2 Stationary Hospital in Rouen where the remarks against his record state that he was ‘severely ill’ and was hence evacuated to the NZ General Hospital in Brockenhurst, Hampshire.
Back in England and getting no better, November 25th remarks state that he was now ‘seriously ill’ having developed pleurisy with effusion. By December 5th, the telling remarks simply state ‘dangerously ill’. He passed away three days later on December 8th 1916. He was 17 days shy of his 22nd birthday.
A diary entry by nurse Fanny Speedy in her ‘Hakna Diaries 1915-1919’ reads:
‘Gunner Frederick Fendall, in 17 Side room who has been very ill lately died this morning, a very nice boy’.

FS Fendall grave

Frederick is buried in Plot A, Row 2, Grave 7 at Brockenhurst (St Nicholas) in Hampshire.
White wooden crosses marked the locations of the fallen until 1924 when the Imperial War Graves Commission replaced the originals with the current engraved headstones.
There are the following commemorations for him:

  • The Christchurch Cathedral, Memorial Chapel of St. Michael and St. George (These panels are in storage awaiting conservation cleaning and future restoration upon the completion of the rebuild)
  • St John the Baptist churchyard war memorial at Rangiora
  • A brass plaque near the alter in St. John the Baptist church, Rangiora
  • The Rangiora Borough and County War Memorial

 

The New Zealand corner of parish churchyard

Frederick Selwyn Fendall Online Cenotaph – click here

Information and photos kindly provided by Janine Fendall

ANZAC HEROES