Gunner Frederick Lambert of the Royal Garrison Artillery

By John D Ellis

Frederick Lambert was born on the Island of Barbados c.1879/1880. He enlisted in the Royal Garrison Artillery (RGA) in Southampton on the 8^th of July 1916. He was a labourer by trade, aged 36 years, 5 feet 7” tall and gave his residential address as 28 Bridge Road, Southampton. He named the housekeeper, Miss E Jones, as his next of kin. On enlistment he was given the number #99123, ranked as a Gunner and posted to No.3 Depot and then 36 Company RGA. Whilst he had no preference for any branch of the armed forces (at that time limited to the Royal Navy and Army), a note in his records indicated that he wished to serve as a stoker in the Royal Navy which did not, with hindsight, bode well for his new career. All of Frederick Lambert’s service was spent “at Home” – because he deserted in Plymouth on the 22^nd of October 1916.

“The Police Gazette” regularly listed British Army deserters, and on Tuesday the 7^th of November 1916, Frederick Lambert appeared in its pages under the heading: “Deserters and Absentees from His Majesty’s Service”. Name: Lambert, Fredk. Reg. No: 99123. Corps: 36^th Co. RGA. Age: 37. Height: 5/7. Complxn: Blck*. Hair: Black. Eyes: ___. Trade: Labourer. Enlistment: 8^th July 1916, Southampton. Parish and County in which born: Barbados, B.W.Ind. Desertion or Absence: 22^nd October 1916, Plymouth. Marks and Remarks: *man of colour.

Frederick Lambert was detained in Cardiff, a city he had some familiarity with according to the Western Mail, 25^th January 1917, under the heading “Expelled but back again”:

Alleged American Rogue sent for trial at Cardiff. Frederick Lambert (37), who was alleged to be an American subject, an allegation which he denied, was charged at Cardiff on Wednesday (before Mr James Miles and Mr FH Jotham), with being a deserter from the Royal Garrison Artillery, also contravening an expulsion order made under the Aliens Act, 1905. Detective Sergeant Pugsley put in a certificate showing that on March 14, 1912, defendant was convicted at Cardiff as a rogue and a vagabond. An order was then made for the defendant’s expulsion from the country, said the officer, and witness took him to Southampton on June 1, 1912, and saw him on board a vessel bound for America. Police Inspector King stated that he arrested defendant at a house in Ordell Street, Cardiff, on Friday last. Defendant told the magistrates that he was born at Barbados, and spoke of the hardship of being kept out of the country seeing that he had to get his living by the sea. He was committed to the next quarter sessions.”

He was discharged from the RGA on the 17^th of March 1917, his services “being no longer required”.

In defence of Frederick Lambert, by 1916 any man who got his “living at sea” had almost certainly proved his bravery on the merchant convoys. According to the Imperial War Museum between 1914 and 1918 more than 3,000 British flagged merchant and fishing vessels were sunk and nearly 15,000 merchant seamen had died. Whilst Cardiff had a prominent Black presence prior to the First World War, when the war started in 1914 the ‘colour bar’ was prohibiting them enlisting. The Caernarvon & Denbigh Herald reported that “In Cardiff, where there is such a cosmopolitan population, complaints have been made by coloured men that they have not been allowed to enlist in the Army”. This may be why Frederick Lambert enlisted in Southampton, and found himself in the Army, when he actually wanted to be a stoker in the Royal Navy. His fate remains unknown.^[1]Sources: For Frederick Lambert see: UK, British Army World War I Service Records, 1914-1920. The National Archives (TNA) Kew, Surrey, England; War Office: Soldiers’ Documents, First World War TNA … Continue reading