Private Frederick William SWORD (1908)

8th (Service) Battalion, Rifle Brigade; 1/14th (County of London) Battalion (London Scottish), London Regiment
Born 1 November 1888 in Edinburgh
Killed in action 11 May 1917, aged 28
Commemorated on the Arras Memorial, Pas-de-Calais, France.

Frederick Sword was the eldest son of Frederick Stewart and Catherine Sword of ‘Teneriffe’, Carlisle Road, Eastbourne; he had two brothers and three sisters.

He was educated at Uppingham School, Rutland, and came up to Merton in 1908. Before the war he was a farmer in Argentina.

He enlisted in the 8th (Service) Battalion, The Rifle Brigade, on 11 January 1915, and was made Temporary Second Lieutenant on 3 June. However, on 18 November 1915 he was dismissed from His Majesty’s Service for drunkenness on duty.

He re-enlisted in March 1916 with the London Scottish (giving his occupation as ‘Farmer’), and it was during an attack near Wancourt, Pas-de-Calais, that he is presumed to have been killed in action, on 11 May 1917.