Once again it has proved impossible so far to link a soldier listed on the Hawarden Memorial to the village of Hawarden.

Frederick Bird appeared on the 1891 census living with his family at 11 Kitchen Street, Chester. His father was Edward Frederick Bird a 23 year old Tailor. His mother was Eliza was 26. Their listed children were Rosina who was 2 and Frederick who was 8 days old.

They were still in Kitchen Street on the 1901 census.  Edward F. was 32 and still a tailor.   Eliza was 39.Their children were  Rosina,12,  Frederick 10,  Annie, 7, Wilfred, 5,  Joseph, 2 and  Arthur  9months old.  All had been born in Chester.

The family was still in Kitchen Street on the 1911 census and Edward Frederick, 43 was still a Tailor.  Eliza was 49.  Their children were recorded as follows;  Frederick, 20 was a Lamp Lighter in the Electricity Works,Annie was 18  Wilfred, 15 was a Lead Light Worker.  Joseph was 13,  Arthur, 10,  Barbara, 8 and Ethel was age 3.

Frederick married Helena Campbell in Loughboro.in 1916, ( Vol 7a, Page 267)

Helena’s story is intriguing and complex. In the 1891 census she was living with her family in Liverpool Road Chester. Her father was William, her mother Mary and her two sisters were Edith and Nellie. Helena was 3. In the next census of 1901, however,13 year old Helena was a ‘ward’ in The Orphanage at Moston Hall, Chester.

When Helena was in the orphanage in 1901 her mother Mary Campbell was a widow, still living in Chester with her 10 year old daugter Nellie and a son Albert who was 4. The eldest daughter Edith was a domestic servant. William Frederick Campbell had died when he was age 38 in 1897 (Chester CAT/68/20).

The 1911 census saw Helena  in 7, Stanley Place, Chester as a Domestic Servant, a housemaid, she was 23.

UK Soldiers who Died in The Great War 1914-19 accessible on www.ancestry.co.uk confirms the regimental details at the top of this page and adds that Frederick Bird enlisted in Chester. His medal card also on ‘Ancestry’ gives us medal details but nothing else.

I cannot find any Army Service Records for Frederick to find out any more about his life in his Theatre of War.

There is no Flintshire WW1 Index Card for Frederick in the Flintshire Roll of Honour in the County Record Office in Hawarden.

This is the only Frederick Bird that has any connection to this part of the world, but there has to be a connection to Deeside for the Soldier to be added to the Hawarden Cenotaph and I cannot find one. We know that the Gladstone family had a benevolent and generous attitude to orphans. Perhaps there was a connection there through Helena’s story.

Any information gratefully received.