Profile

SMITH, Frank Sylvester
(Service number 12649)

Aliases
First Rank	Trooper	Last Rank	Trooper

Birth

Date	03/12/1891	Place of Birth	Timaru

Enlistment Information

Date	16 December 1915	Age	24 years
Address at Enlistment	Smithfield, Timaru
Occupation	Farming
Previous Military Experience
Marital Status	Single
Next of Kin	T. J. SMITH (father), Smithfield, Timaru
Religion	Methodist
Medical Information

Military Service

Served with	NZ Armed Forces	Served in	Army
Military District

Embarkation Information

Body on Embarkation	New Zealand Expeditionary Force
Unit, Squadron, or Ship	New Zealand Mounted Rifles Brigade
Date	6 May 1916
Transport	Mokoia or Navua
Embarked From		Destination	Suez, Egypt

Other Units Served With
Last Unit Served With	Canterbury Mounted Rifles

Military Awards

Campaigns	Egyptian Expeditionary Force
Service Medals	British War Medal; Victory Medal
Military Awards

Award Circumstances and Date

No information

Prisoner of War Information

Date of Capture
Where Captured and by Whom
Actions Prior to Capture
PoW Serial Number
PoW Camps
Days Interned
Liberation Date

Discharge

Date	23 August 1918	Reason

Hospitals, Wounds, Diseases and Illnesses

Post-war Occupations

Labourer

Death

Date	11 June 1958	Age	66 years
Place of Death	Fairview, Timaru
Cause
Notices
Memorial or Cemetery	Timaru Cemetery
Memorial Reference	General Section, Row 57, Plot 1296
New Zealand Memorials

Biographical Notes

Frank Sylvester Smith was born on 3 December 1891 at Timaru, the younger son of Thomas James and Harriett Ann (née Roberts) Smith. He was educated at Waimataitai School, Timaru. In 1903 Frank, his older sister Ethel and older brother Jim all received prizes at the Waimataitai Sunday School. Frank S. Smith was one of the South Canterbury recruits for the eleventh reinforcements (Mounted Rifles), who left Timaru for Trentham on 15 December 1915. He enlisted on 16 December 1915 at Trentham, naming his father as next-of-kin – T. J. Smith, Smithfield, Timaru. He was farming, single, and Methodist.

Trooper F. S. Smith embarked for Suez, Egypt, on 6 May 1916, with the New Zealand Mounted Rifles Brigade. A draft arrived in Wellington on 23 December 1917 – “Home for ‘Xmas”. “The men arrived in good fettle, mny of them having been immensely benefited by the sea trip.” One of the men in that draft was 12649 F. S. Smith, Smithfield. “Trooper F. S. Smith, son of Mr and Mrs T. J. Smith of Smithfield, arrived home on Christinas Day invalided from the front. Private Smith left with this 12th Reinforcements, took part in the decisive batlde for Gaza, and was in almost every engagement on the Egyptian front, and in numberless skirmishes. He was slightly wounded twice, and returned to the troop, but eventually was invalided.” [Timaru Herald, 29 December 1917.]

Frank married Grace Etta Hammond in 1921. He died on 11 June 1958 at his Fairview residence, aged 66 years. Grace died twenty years later and was buried at Timatu Cemetery with Frank. They were survived by two daughters and a son. Frank’s older brother, James Garner Smith (Jim), who was a carpenter and joiner, was drawn in the ballot in January 1918. He asked for an extension of time, when he appeared before the Military Appeal Board in February 1918 and was granted till 25 June.

Sources

Auckland War Memorial Museum Cenotaph Database [01 August 2022]; NZ BDM Indexes (Department of Internal Affairs) [01 August 2022]; School Admission record (South Canterbury Branch NZSG) [01 August 2022]; Timaru Herald, 15 December 1903, 9 December 1915, 29 December 1917, Dominion, 24 December 1917, 16 Jamuary 1918, 27 February 1918, 1 March 1918, Press, 10 August 1978 (Papers Past) [10 July 2022; 01 August 2022]; Timaru Cemetery headstone image (Timaru District Council) [01 August 2022]

External Links

Researched and Written by

Teresa Scott, SC Genealogy Society

Currently Assigned to

Not assigned.

Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License unless otherwise stated.