Corporal Fred Wise
Royal Engineers 99064
Fred was born to Harriet Wise in January 1890 and was baptised on Easter Day of the same year at St Mary’s Church Woodnewton. When he went to school in 1893, Joseph was listed as his father. The first census record that can be found of Fred is in 1901 when he is living with his widowed grandfather, Joseph Wise and his Aunty Mary Jane. By that time his mother Harriet, had married George William Reed in 1894 and was living at Boars Head Cottage with their 3 children.
School records show that Fred left school on 21st August 1903 at the age of 13 years old and was ‘at home’, so no record of any work place. However, by 1911, the census of that year stated that he was a Police Constable at the London Road Police Station in Kettering.
Fred was married in Oundle 1913 to Lillian Littler who had been working at Woodnewton Vicarage for the Revd Alfred Bagshaw as the family cook.
The attestation papers were obviously lost in the second World War, so there are no military paper to show where he attested. However, his police records state that he joined the Army on 10th May 1915, and re-joined the force on 10th February 1919. The Awards card on Ancestry states that Fred was the recipient of two British medals. However, it is known that to be a recipient of the Victory and British War medals, you needed to have served in the armed forces of the United Kingdom or the British Empire, or with certain recognised voluntary organisations, and have entered any theatre of war between 5 August 1914 and 11 November 1918. So, the conclusion from that is that Fred did serve his country overseas
Fred’s West Midlands police records indicated that he served with the Northamptonshire Constabulary for 18 months, which would take him up until the time of his marriage. So, when Lillian and Fred were married, did they start their new life in a new area? It is known from the 1921 census that by that year he, his wife and their four daughters were living at 83 Harnall Lane, Coventry, Warwickshire, and that he was now a Detective Constable with Coventry City Police. His police records also shows that he went through the ranks and by the time he retired on 1st January 1937, he had reached the position of Patrol Inspector.
Lillian and Fred returned to Woodnewton to spend their retirement in the village and stayed until Lilian’s death in May 1965. Fred then moved to Morecombe, Lancashire to live with his daughter, where he died on 1st October 1968. His funeral service took place at St Mary’s Church, Woodnewton on 18th October, and he was buried in the churchyard.
2022