Project Description
Frank started school at four and left at 13. His first job was delivering groceries. He joined the army at 15 and trained in heavy artillery with the coastal defence battery on the Isle of Wight. He went to East Africa to help put down the slave trade and was in Kenya for three months.
Frank returned to England and went to France in WW1 with the Lancashire and Cheshire Territorial Battery. He was wounded on the Somme and hospitalised for four months after which he returned to France.
Frank met his wife, Ethel, in West Cowes and they married in 1920. They migrated to Australia in 1924 and went to Tutunup for five years before going to a house on a farm block at Abba River in Group Settlement 32. They had three girls – the first, Nancy, in 1926, (a second who died at three days), and Molly, and two boys, Lesley and Stanley.
They moved to a block at Willyabrup which was originally part of Group Settlement 20. They raised cattle and had a dairy.
In WWII Frank enlisted in the 19th Garrison Battalion in Busselton as a corporal but did not see service.
In 1945 he was elected to the Sussex Road Board. He remained with the Board, was its last Chairman and became the first Shire President when the Board was amalgamated with the Busselton Town Shire in 1951. He became a Justice of the Peace in 1952.
Frank was awarded an MBE in June, 1968 for his services to the community.