Virtual
War Memorial
Australia

Although at attestation, he stated he had been born in London, there is every reason to believe he was born in Anstey, Hertfordshire.

Possible birth record

Births Mar 1894  

Chappell Frederick James Bethnal G. 1c 205
  
Chappell Frederick James Royston     3a 519

Although his attestation papers say he was born in london, as does the AIF Project, many people are not sure where they were born.

Anstey is a village and civil parish in the East Hertfordshire district of Hertfordshire, England, about fifteen miles north-east of Stevenage.

Frederick James Chappell (and his twin sister Ethel Rose) was born in Anstey on January 11 1894 and was baptised in Anstey Church.

It is unclear how many children were born to his parents, James and Sarah Ann née Martin although by the 1911 census eight were still living and at least one child had died. Both James and Sarah were born in Anstey, as were Frederick’s two grandfathers. His was a family with long connections here. His parents were married in Anstey Church and all of the children were baptised there too.

In previous censuses the children had been recorded as:
Ada Rose b March 1878
Lottie b June 1880
Fanny b Sept 1882
Henry John b Oct 1884
Dorothy b Aug 1888
Arthur George b 1889
Frederic b Jan 1894
Ethel Rose b Jan 1894
Alfred Bernard b Feb h1897

Both the 1899 and 1901 censuses show the family living in Anstey but with no indication of a location.

In the 1911 census the family was living in a four roomed cottage in Cheapside in the west side (nearest the well) of what is currently Little Thatch.   It consisted of James 55, a farm labourer, Sarah, (Arthur) George, 21, also a farm labourer, Frederick and Ethel.

Although Frederick was 17 at the time no mention of an occupation was given.

This family with such long connections to Anstey seemed then to more or less disappear.

Frederick had an Anstey cousin, Francis Martin, who also served in the war and whose daughter still lives in the village, but she has no knowledge of Frederick or his family. Ada Rose married Samuel Thomas Jones of Kentish Town in 1900. By 1911 Fanny was a servant in Hornsey, Dorothy a servant in Hackney. In 1915 George married Emma Danes and had a son Leonard George. An Anstey resident remembers them living at Hillside but after that they are untraceable.

But what of Frederick? According to the Commonwealth War Graves Commission Frederick James, son of Mrs J Chappell of Anstey, Herts died on September 1st 1918 in France aged 23. He was serving with the Australian Imperial Force.

It would seem that Frederic emigrated to Australia as indeed did his brother Henry John, ten years his senior. Whether they went together and at what date is unknown, but certainly Frederic must have been there before the outbreak of war. He would have volunteered to serve, there being no conscription in Australia during the war, and surely would have done so from Anstey had he been there on the outbreak of war. What is puzzling is why he gave his age as 23 years 3 months on his enlistment papers of 16th May 1916. He was in fact 11 months younger according to the baptism records in Anstey Church. Equally puzzling is the reference on several of his papers to his sister and next of kin, Ruby Constance Buchanan, wife of Jack and mother of 4 children. It was this family with whom Frederic was living when he signed up. There is no trace in any census or Anstey archives of a Ruby in the Chappell family.

Having made his will on 30th September 1916 (leaving all to Ruby, or in the event of her death to her second daughter Olive) and according to the Embarkation Rolls for World War 1 held in the Australian Archives, Frederic sailed from Sydney on 7th October 1916, arriving in Plymouth 6 weeks later. He then sailed for France on 21st December 1916 and joined his unit on 1st February 1917.

On 1st July 1917 records show he was at Carrier Pigeon School in France. On 9th November 1917 he was admitted to the field hospital in Ypres with “pains in the legs and shivers”. This was diagnosed as myalgia the next day, but by 21st November he had been transported back to England and was admitted to the 1st Southern General Hospital in Stirchley, Birmingham, with trench fever and anaemia (severe). He was still convalescing at the beginning of February 1918. He returned to France at the beginning of March 1918 and was gassed and hospitalised as a result at least twice.

During the successful attack on Peronne on 1st September 1918, which had been in the hands of the Germans since March 1917, Frederic was shot in the head and died immediately.

His effects were returned to his “sister” Ruby Buchanan, but his service medals by law had to go to his nearest blood relative who was his mother. It was not until 1923 that she was traced, as living at the School House in Anstey with her married son George. It was her other son in Australia, Henry, who provided the army authorities with their mother’s address. Henry had been found in December 1922 via the executrix of Frederic’s will, Mrs Purdy, who wrote that “the only relative out here (Australia) is a brother”. When contacted previously in April 1921 Mrs Buchanan was evidently unable to help. Had she been a family member, surely she would have been able to provide this information?

Frederick Chappell is remembered on the war memorial in Anstey and on the brass plaque in Anstey Church and Chapel.

Postscript according to information from Frederick’s great-great nephew, (Ada Chappell’s great-grandson.)

There were indeed nine children in the family, with the last one, Alfred Bernard being the only one to die in infancy. Ada married Samuel Thomas Jones and had 12 children, the youngest of whom remembered a photograph of Frederick in a ‘bushman’ type outfit on the wall at his childhood home. It is not known whether this photograph still exists.

Henry John, b 1884, Frederick’s oldest brother, appears to have emigrated first, sailing for Sydney from London on the Miltiades on 6 July 1910. A Frederick Chappell, farm hand aged 22, set sail from London on 1st July 1914 on the “Euripides” bound for Sydney – this may have been Frederick but it has not been possible to verify.

(Frederic’s father and Frederic himself spelt his name without the k, but others often added the k at the end).

The brothers must have been on friendly terms but at some point during the next few years relations seem to have soured. On Frederick’s service record, Henry’s name was inserted as next of kin only to be scrawled out at some point and replaced with that of his “sister” Mrs Ruby Constance Buchanan. Mrs Buchanan was not his sister but clearly she and her husband were valued friends, who, following Frederick’s death, placed notices in the Sydney Morning Herald both immediately and a year later on 25th September 1919.

Henry also placed a notice in the Sydney Morning Herald on 1st September 1918 indicating that misunderstandings had caused the brothers to grow apart.

Whether Henry was on good terms with the Buchanans is unknown, but, considering Mrs Buchanan’s lack of information about Frederick’s family in 1921 when she was searching for his next of kin, it seems unlikely.