Frederick Stafford Fairclough (1891 - 1966)

Born 30 Jan 1891 in London, England

Ancestors

Husband of Ellen Dorothy (Jacobs) Fairclough — married 30 Jul 1914 in Brentford, London, England

Descendants

Died 12 Aug 1966 at age 75 in Market Harborough, Leicestershire, England

Problems/Questions Profile managers: Gerald Newnham [send private message] and Bill Fairclough [send private message]

Frederick Fairclough was born in 1891. He was a teacher by trade. He was educated at Latymer Upper School https://www.latymer-upper.org/ and St Mark's College Westminster https://www.dowat.co.uk/?title=Our+Schools&pid=3&schoolid=6. He later became a headmaster to several schools including in Dallington, Brackley and Summertown Oxford.

In 1914, when the First World War started, he was married on 30 July and called up on 5 August although he had already volunteered to join the British Army. He started out as a private in the 10th Middlesex Regiment in the summer of 1914 and left England only to return in 1919. He was commissioned as a lieutenant in the Indian Army (Queen Victoria's Own Sappers & Miners). During a distinguished career he served in and saw action in India, Pakistan and Afghanistan (the Himalayas), Turkey and in Kut in Mesopotamia (now Iraq).

He fought in the Himalayas in the First World War, mainly behind enemy lines using guerrilla war tactics. During the fighting he lost an eye and the use of an arm. His first son, Richard, was born in 1915, not long after Frederick had gone to India to fight in the war. He didn't see his son until his return in 1919.

Frederick was not notified of the cessation of hostilities in 1918 until April 1919. In the time that elapsed he (and the troops under his command) killed thousands of pro-Kaiser conscripts. Luckily he was not charged with any war crimes!

He and his wife Ellen had five children: Richard (born 1915), Dorothy (born 1920), Barbara (born 1921), Sheila (born 1926) and Geoffrey (born 1927).

After the war he returned to teaching and ended his career as a headmaster in a school in Oxford. After that he retired to Poole, near Bournemouth and then moved to Market Harborough in Leicestershire. He passed away peacefully in 1966.

He features as Frederick Burlington in Beyond Enkription, the first published novel in The Burlington Files series of espionage novels based on the life of Bill Fairclough. Some of the accounts of Frederick's experiences in the First World War that he told his grandchildren (Peter and Bill Fairclough) are preserved in Beyond Enkription. His profile portrait was painted in oils by his daughter Sheila.