b. 03/1885 Two Mile Hill, Gloucestershire. d. 03/1929 Hanham, Gloucestershire.
DATE OF EM ACTION: 29/05/1908 Hanham Colliery, near Bristol.
Samuel Frederick, later Frederick, was born in March 1885 in Two Mile Hill, Gloucestershire, the youngest of five children of Samuel and Hannah Watts (nee Knapp). His father worked as a general labourer and his mother was a laundress. His elder brother Walter became a shoe maker, but Frederick chose a career in mining. On 1st October 1904 in Christ Church, Hanham, he married Alice Mary Beese. He and Alice would have eight children in all, and lived close to the Hanham Colliery where Frederick was employed. Following the award of the Edward Medal, he continued to work at Hanham. Sadly, Frederick died relatively young, aged just 44, in 1929 and was buried in Christ Churchyard, Hanham.
EM CITATION:
On the 29th May, 1908, two miners named Frederick Watts and Isaac Tanner were at work in the Hanham Colliery. They had prepared four charges for blasting close to each other, and Tanner had just set fire to the fuses. He appears to have taken longer than he expected to light the fuses, and before he could get to a place of safety one of the shots exploded, and a falling stone broke his arm. He found himself unable to move, and called out to Watts to help him; whereupon Watts, who had left the dangerous spot, went back and dragged him to a place of safety, although he knew that any of the three charges might explode at auy moment. Tanner unfortunately died in April, 1909, from the effects of this injury.
BURIAL LOCATION: CHRIST CHURCHYARD, HANHAM, GLOUCESTERSHIRE.
LOCATION OF MEDAL: UNKNOWN.
