Hull Pals Memorial Post. PRIVATE FRED PROCTOR 11/596. Born in 1889, Fred was the second of three children to William and Mary Jane Proctor of 3 Ribble Avenue, Ribble Street, Hull. He was 5' 6" tall with hazel brown eyes and had a swollen finger joint on his left hand, possibly an accident from his work as a Labourer.

He queued outside City Hall to enlist for the fledgling Pals Battalions on 9th September 1914 and joined the 11th Battalion East Yorkshire Regiment, 'The Tradesmen'. After serving in Egypt over Christmas 1915, the Pals arrived in Marseilles on 8th March and began the journey north to the trenches of the Western Front. Fred was killed in action during the Somme campaign on 17th August 1916 and is buried at Le Touret Military Cemetery; he was 27 years old. The slow dawning realisation of exactly what faced them was creeping into their thoughts. Just the day before Captain Watson of the 12th Battalion had written home:

"I'm finally convinced fighting can't and won't (end it)- it's a case of you're here and I'm here- and whoever attacks loses enormously and cannot move far- whilst the constant wastage that goes on with this sitting opposite each other game, is the more terrible because it doesn't get either side any further."

And yet the war would grind on for another two and a quarter years.

The Proctor family had already lost their eldest son William. He had served with the King's Royal Rifle Corps and died at home just over a month before Fred. His parents lost both sons. Impossible to imagine their grief. Both sons are commemorated on the WW1 memorial, at St John The Baptist Church, Newington, Hull.

HIS DEATH WAS REPORTED IN THE HULL DAILY MAIL ON 06/09/1916, WITH HIS PHOTOGRAPH. * HE IS RECORDED AS KILLED, ON HULL'S RIBBLE STREET, ROLL OF HONOUR (Hull Daily Mail 22 September 1916)