Current Information:

Born-Stepney

Enlisted-Woolwich

Guards Cemetery, Windy Corner, Cuinchy, France

During the first week of March, 1915, the 1st King’s Royal Rifle Corps battalion of 6 Brigade, 2nd Division were holding the line near Givenchy and Windy Corner to the south of Festubert with two companies in the front trenches and the other two in reserve in billets, rotating positions every two days. Frederick Archer was killed on 1st March but the entry for that day in the battalion diary only records that their trenches were visited by the Prince of Wales. The attrition rate among British soldiers on the Western Front was on average 300 each day and 60% of these were as a result of shellfire. When not involved in an actual battle it was either shell fire or a sniper’s bullet that caused most deaths and injuries.