Brian Harold Frearson
Pioneer 237853
‘A’ Signal Depot Bedford
Royal Engineers
War Plot
Division 71 &72
The information for Brian Harold Frearson was supplied by John Frearson.
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Brian Harold Frearson was born on 1st June 1898.
His family had always been farmers, and can be traced back to Derbyshire in the 1600s. The family moved to Lincolnshire in the early 1800s. Brian’s father, Henry John FREARSON was born on a farm in West Barkwith, Lincolnshire in 1853, but because of difficulties finding farms, he moved to Hampshire with two of his brothers sometime between 1871 and 1875, and farmed in Barton Stacey. Henry married Annie Mary SYMMONDS in June 1880. She had been born in Appleford in Berkshire in 1858, but her family moved to Hampshire when her father become the tenant of a neighbouring farm. Henry John was a successful [and prize-winning] sheep farmer. Brian was the youngest of eleven children born to Henry and Annie between 1881 and 1896. All but one survived into adulthood, so Brian had five brothers and four sisters. By the time of Brian’s birth, the family had moved to Odstone Farm, at Odstone Tything, in Ashbury, a village between Faringdon and Swindon.
Little is known of Brian’s early years; he probably had a governess at the farm. By the age of 12 or 13, Brian was attending Swindon College being in “Year 1911”. The College was originally set up in 1843 by the Great Western Railway Company to provide educational classes for its employees. There is also a stained glass memorial window to him, and the other “old boys” and former college staff at Swindon College who lost their lives in the Great War. This is located in the original building of Swindon College.
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Brian joined up, it appears, at the age of 17 or 18 [the dating of a photograph of him in uniform as 1914 is likely to be an error]. He served from about 1916 – 1918 as a Pioneer in the “A” Signal Depot Bedford, Royal Engineers [Regimental No. 237853] during the First War. This suggests that he was first sent for recruit training to the Royal Engineers Signal Service Depot at Bedford. A note in the Swindonian [the Swindon College magazine] in autumn 1916 reads:
“BH Frearson (1911) has been employed as a wireless operator on a transport to India”.
It seems that he was later posted to France or Belgium. He suffered in a gas attack, and was repatriated to England and sent to the Redlands Hospital in Reading. He died as a result of the gas on 4 February 1918. He is buried in Reading Cemetery in “Plot 72”, which is a separate area surrounded by hedges. There are no longer any marked graves, although photograph taken at the time of the burial shows a separate grave. The screen-wall memorial now commemorates those buried there. His inscription reads: –
“237853. Pioneer B. H. Frearson. Royal Engineers. 4.2.18 38”. It is assumed “38” was the grave number.
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I am greatful to John Frearson for the information he has supplied about his relative and especially for the photographs of the graves in the War Plot. As John says the War Plot is laid to lawn. The photographs of the individual graves and their markers are very interesting. Some of the original markers were moved to the outside of the plot behind the hedge others have disappeared.