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Rank : Lieutenant Quartermaster

Army Number : 144

Unit : 1st Bn

Biography :

Home address given as Lapworth, Warwickshire. The youngest of 13 children, Frederick Arculus enlisted in The Leicestershire Regiment on 3.8.1881, and initially joined C Company,1st Battalion, in India, in which Battalion he spent much of the next 22 years. From 1884-1886 he as a Lance Corporal (and a Sergeant and two Privates of 1st Bn) was attached to the Army in The Sudan. There, after the death of General Gordon at Khartoum, an expeditionary force was sent to Suakin arriving in March 1885. After two successful actions fought the expedition was withdrawn. For his service on operations up the River Nile and at Suakin 1885-86 he was awarded The Egypt Medal 1882-1889 (with clasps Suakin and Tofrek) and the Khedive's Star.
In 1891, in the rank of Colour Sergeant he rejoined 1st Bn in Halifax, Nova Scotia, where he married Kathleen Eleanor Riggs, an Irish girl from Collinstown, Westmeath [Kathleen's sister Henrietta married Edward Smith of the Regiment in Nova Scotia in 1892]. Frederick moved with 1st Bn to Barbados in 1893, and in 1896 he and his family were in at the Military Camp at Wynberg (near Cape Town in South Africa) where his wife died on 23.1.1897, which was followed in 1898 by the death of his 6-year-old son, Ernest Frederick. Now a widower, in 1st Bn he was in the Force led by General Sir William Penn Symons, which attacked the Boer position at Talana Hill on 20.10.1899. Next he was in the Bn at the 4-month siege of Ladysmith, where the troops were reduced to starvation rations and a tenth of the Battalion became casualties. From the rank of Sergeant Major he was commissioned Lieutenant Quartermaster on 27.2.1901. After a brief rest, the 1st Bn went on to the Orange Free State and the Transvaal, where Frederick was present at the storming of Laing's Nek and the capture of Amersfort, Ermelo and Belfast, and in skirmishes round Lyndenberg. The Battalion left South Africa in 1903, and he travelled with it to India. There he died of 'Heat Apoplexy' on 1.4.1903, aged 40 years. During his military service he was awarded four decorations: The afore-mentioned Egypt Medal 1882-1889 (with clasps Suakin and Tofrek) and the Khedive's Star; and the Queen's South Africa Medal (with clasps Talana, Defence of Ladysmith, Laing's Nek, Belfast) and the King's South Africa Medal.

Date of Birth : April 1863

Place of Birth : Nuthurst cum Hockley Heath, Warwickshire

Date of Death : 1.4.1903

Place of Death : Sholapur, Maharashtra State, India

Civil Occupation : Baker

Period of Service : 1881-1903

Conflicts : The Suakin Expedition (The Sudan)1885, Boer War 1899-1902

Places Served : The Sudan; Barbados, Halifax, Nova Scotia; South Africa; India