Frank and Harold Baldock

The First World War was particularly tragic for Frederick and Annie Baldock who ran Baldock's Mill in South Street, Bourne. They lost two of their sons and a third was wounded.

Frank Baldock enlisted in the 6th Battalion, the Lincolnshire Regiment and was soon promoted lance corporal and posted to the Dardanelles where he took part in one of the early engagements. He was killed in action at Gallipoli on 9th August 1915 in the vicinity of the Scimitar Hill area of Suvla and is commemorated on the Helles Memorial in Gallipoli and the war memorial in Bourne. Little is known about his death other than he was posted missing for several months before being presumed dead.

Harold Baldock was a boy 1st Class with the Royal Navy and he died with the sinking of HMS Natal on 30th December 1915 at the age of 17 and two weeks after he had been home on leave. The ship, a 13,500-ton armoured cruiser, was destroyed by an accidental internal explosion in the harbour at Cromarty in Scotland that caused the death of 421 men out of a complement of 704. His name has been included on the Chatham Naval Memorial and the war memorial in Bourne.

Jack Baldock was wounded but survived the war and returned home to help his father run the mill.

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