There is a card for him in the Flintshire Roll of Honour at the County Archive Office in Hawarden. It tells us that he lived in Ivy Cottages Northop Hall. He served one year and 11 months including service in Egypt as well as Palestine.
The 1901 census placed him in Northop Hall Cottage where the family comprised Thomas Powell (head) aged 41 a tile maker born in Buckley, his wife Catherine Jane 39 – from Birkenhead, Thomas John 15 a tile runner, Frederick 10 and Margaret 3.
The next census of 1911 finds the family still in Northop Hall. The head of the household is widowed Kate Powell 49. The three children were still at home. Thomas John was 25 and a weighman at the colliery, Fred was 20 and a plate layer on the railway and Margaret Catherine was 13 and still at school.
UK soldiers died in the Great War 1914-19 accessible on www.ancestry.co.uk gives the regimental details above and also that Fred had enlisted in Queensferry.
His Army Service Records have survived and are also on Ancestry. They tell us that he enlisted and Attested on the 8th December 1915 in Queensferry. His address was Ivy Cottage, Northop Hall. His medical inspection revealed that he was 25 years and 4 months old, 5′ 7” tall and weighed 148 ilbs. His chest was 34 1/2 inches. His physical development was deemed to be good as was his eyesight. He was deemed to be fit to serve in the 2/5th Royal Welsh Fusiliers and he was embodied into the regiment on Christmas Eve 1915. He was given the regimental number 3598. This was changed later.
The records include his signed acceptance of Army terms and conditions including agreeing to serve abroad should there be a national emergency.
He was posted on 1st January 1916 – presumably to a training facility.
On the 31st May 1916 he embarked from Devonport on H.T. Kalyan to arrive at Alexandria in Egypt on the 11th June 1916. He joined the Battalion 5 days later. In April 1917 he was hospitalised with scabies. In November that year he was killed in action.
The records contain correspondence between the army and Fred’s mother Kate Powell, concerning the receipt of his personal possessions, medals, memorial scrolls and commemorative plaque.
There is a relatives form completed by Kate for the army in October 1919 . It simply lists herself as the mother and his brother Thomas John and his sister Katie.
The Register of Soldiers’ Effects, in which the Army calculated what monies were owed to deceased soldiers includes an entry for Fred. It confirms the regimental details and that he died on the 7th November 1917 in Palestine. His mother Kate received a payment of £5 ..13sh in 1918 and a further £8.10sh War Gratuity in 1919.