Notes
The Bradford Grammar School website (see References) states: 'Frank Beech was born in Hunslet in south Leeds in the summer of 1897, the eldest surviving child of Charles Henry Beech and Harriet Thickett. They both lived in the industrial Holbeck area, where Charles’s father worked at an iron foundry and Harriet was a dressmaker. They married in 1894. Charles worked as a local government clerk but he later took employment with a wool merchant. Some time after 1901 the family moved to Baildon where Charles became cashier to a wool merchant.
Frank went to Bradford Grammar School for little more than a year in the years 1910-1912, in Form 5th Modern Lower. What he did after school is unknown, but he was later were associated with the Rosse Street Baptist Church in Shipley. When the war started Frank did not immediately enlist, but probably early in 1915 he joined the 2nd Bradford Pals although he was only 17. He went to Egypt at the end of 1915, then served in France. He was present at Serre on 1st July 1916 where he was wounded in the face and shoulder. After recovering
from his wounds, Frank did not return to the Pals but was instead posted to the 1/8th Battalion West Yorkshire Regiment, the 2nd Leeds Rifles. In company with Territorial battalions from Leeds, Bradford and Harrogate, this formed 146th Brigade, 49th West Riding Division. On 21/22nd July the battalion suffered severely from a bombardment near the Belgian coast with a new type of gas shell, known as ‘mustard gas’. This put 750 officers and
men out of action of whom more than 400 returned to Britain. The 1/8th Battalion had to be rebuilt with more than 700 reinforcements, and it was probably during this process that Beech arrived and was posted to ‘A’ Company. The battalion not surprisingly was described as ‘raw’ at the start of September.
After three weeks of training and practice attacks, described as ‘exceedingly valuable’, the battalion was committed to the attack on Passchendaele Ridge planned for 9th October. The six-mile march to the assembly positions was carried out in near impossible conditions, in pitch darkness and torrential rain, in single file along a narrow duckboard track. The 1/8th Battalion was third to move off and took twelve hours to get into position, the rear company reaching the start line only five minutes before zero hour at 5.20am. It was on the left of the brigade, with Beech’s ‘A’ Company in the second wave. The ground was a quagmire and a
swamp-like stream had to be crossed, while the barrage was inadequate. In spite of these ‘almost insuperable difficulties’ the battalion managed to advance about 300 yards under heavy machine-gun and sniper fire before it had to dig in. Nearly all the officers and NCOs were put out of action, together with three hundred Other Ranks. Of these 46 were killed, among them Frank Beech. His body was not recovered, so his name is on the Memorial to the Missing at Tyne Cot Cemetery, and also on memorials in Baildon and Shipley in addition to B.G.S.'