Tower and Town, November 2025 (view the full edition)A Long Journey To DeathLarge numbers of young British men had been encouraged by the Canadian government to emigrate abroad to develop farms and take up selected occupations around the turn of the century. Prime Minister Laurier's government, especially the Minister of the Interior, Clifford Sifton, was determined to fill Western Canada with immigrants. Sifton created an immigration policy that reflected Canada's need: European newcomers had to be farmers. Agents were paid $2 (Canadian dollars) for every British immigrant farm labourer. Frederick (Fred) Ford, was born on 22 May 1886 in Marlborough. Aged 20, he emigrated on the SS Carthaginian in May 1906 landing at Halifax, Nova Scotia. The ship was later sunk by a mine laid by the German submarine U79 in 1917 with no loss of life. There were ten other passengers from Wiltshire on the same ship, with four marked as 'British Bonus Allowed'. The ship's manifest identified Fred's destination as Winnipeg with his occupation listed as labourer, stamped 'farmer'.
As a Private, he embarked with the battalion from Montreal on 20 May 1915 aboard the RMS Missanabie, disembarking in England ten days later. Its strength was 37 officers and 1104 other ranks. September 1915 saw field firing at Hythe, trench attack training then marching from Moore's Plain to Folkestone Quay. The battalion's departure was postponed due to mines being found at Boulogne, arriving in France on the SS St. Seriol, 17 September 1915. The battalion became part of the 2nd Canadian Division, 6th Canadian Infantry Brigade and was quickly at the front. The unit's first casualty came quickly on 26th September in the trenches. Private MacDonald was killed by rifle fire. In April 1916 the battalion and Private Ford were in the thick of the action. War diary entries reported: "At Crater 6...it took three quarters of an hour to get from a point between trenches 19 and 20, heavy machine gun fire, our own shelling and flares causing delay. Found crater unoccupied except for our own dead" On 12 May 1916, Private Ford was promoted to Corporal in the field. That day was windy and cloudy with a working party of 400 suffering no casualties. On the 27th May (when Corporal Ford was likely to have been wounded) the unit war diary reported: "After midnight the enemy bombed trench 16 but silenced by our guns...at noon heavy shelling...Casualties two killed, two wounded, two died of wounds" His records show that on the 31st he had already been moved from the 4th Canadian Casualty clearing station, suffering from gun shot wounds and shrapnel to the thigh, to the no 13 Stationary Hospital in Boulogne. This was a British base hospital housed in sugar sheds and warehouses at the Gare Maritime. These hospitals were established to provide advanced and specialist care for casualties from the Western Front. He died of his wounds on 31 May 1916. The final assigned pay sent to his mother was $25 a month. He is buried at the Commonwealth War Graves site at the Boulogne Eastern Cemetery, alongside 5,779 other soldiers. |
