Fred Winson was born in Great Torrington in 1894 and was baptised later that year. At the time of 1901 the family are found living at 18 Well Street. Fred’s parents are Fredrick and Fanny, both born in the town in 1868 and 1867 respectively. Fredrick has employment as a tin plate worker. There are three sons in the household; Fred, aged 6 at this stage, his older brother, Charles, who is 8 years, and his younger brother, Herbert, aged 4. Again, all the children were born in Great Torrington. In the same year Fred was enrolled into Great Torrington Bluecoat School by his father.

 

Little had changed by the time of the 1911 census with the household consisting of the same faces and the family still living at 18 Well Street. The parents have occupation as a plumber and a “glove pointer”. Two of their children are also in employment with Charles as a plumbing apprentice and Fred being having an apprenticeship to “engineering implements”. The youngest son, Herbert, is still of school age.

 

Little is known about Fred’s life between this point and his death. We know that he originally enlisted with the Devonshire Regiment, holding service number 266157. At the time of enlistment his residence was listed as Torrington, although he actually enlisted in Barnstaple. After this point he was transferred to the Machine Gun Corps and held the service number 113461. He was attached to the 257th Company.  We also know that he was engaged with the Mesopotamia campaign, although details beyond this are unknown.

 

Machine gun technology was seen as a major contributing factor in the huge numbers of casualties during the Great War. This technology advanced as the war advanced both in terms of reliability, efficiency and portability; part of this would be to overcome one of the most common issues, overheating. In November 1915 machine gun companies were formed and one was attached to each brigade. This was coupled with a machine gun training centre based at Grantham, which acted as a conduit to putting newly trained recruits into these companies. The 257th Company is recorded to have moved to the Indian theatre from August 1917 and in Mesopotamia from November 1917.     

 

The North Devon Journal reported Fred’s death on 18th July 1918. His date of death is recorded as 18th June 1918. It is also reported that he drowned whilst on active service in Mesopotamia [1]. He was 24 years of age.

 

As well as being remembered on the on the Great Torrington war memorial, Private Winson is also remembered on the Basra war memorial in Iraq. Although his grave is unmarked, his name appears on panel 41 of the memorial.

 

[1] North Devon Journal. July 18th 1918. ‘Births, Marriages and Deaths’.