Lieutenant Frederick Gladstone Wilson, 13th Battalion, AIF
Australian War MemorialFrederick Wilson was born on 17 August 1890, the second son of Frederick and Eleanor Wilson. He was born in Sale, Victoria but the family moved to Albert Park in Melbourne, where he started school. They later went to Port Melbourne, where the older boys went to the Nott Street School.
As a teenager, Frederick joined the Sale squadron of the Australian Light Horse, and proved a most able and zealous soldier, rising to prominence in the regiment. He became a commercial traveller like his older brother Beresford, and moved to New South Wales. Frederick Wilson continued in the military while in NSW, serving with the Citizen Forces in the post of captain-instructor. In 1913, Beresford was killed in a boating accident in Mosman Bay.
Wilson applied for a commission in the Australian Imperial Force in November 1914. He was posted to the rank of lieutenant and appointed to the 13th Battalion. The battalion left for overseas service in late December 1914. After a brief stop in Albany, Western Australia, it arrived in Egypt in early February 1915. Lieutenant Wilson continued training with the battalion in Egypt for several weeks, where there were also many opportunities to explore Cairo and the pyramids.
The battalion was then sent to Gallipoli.
The 13th Battalion sailed from Lemnos in the morning of 25 April 1915, several hours after the landing had started. They arrived off the peninsula that afternoon and began disembarking under fire from about 9.30 pm. By 5am on 26 April, the 13th Battalion was in position at the head of Monash Valley.
That same day, Lieutenant Frederick Wilson was killed in action.
No record of the manner of his death remains though it appears he was buried nearby. The exact location of his grave is unknown but he is thought to be buried in Courtney’s and Steel’s Post Cemetery on Gallipoli. There is a special memorial to him in that cemetery, which reads “he died in defence of his country; sadly missed”.
Frederick Wilson’s brother, Gilbert, enlisted a few weeks after Frederick did, and served in the 2nd Pioneer Battalion. He was on Gallipoli for several months before being sent to fight on the Western Front. After coming through the heavy fighting around Pozières in July 1916, Corporal Gilbert Wilson was killed in action at Flers in November of that year.
In a little over three years, the Wilson family had lost their three eldest sons, two in service of their country. Beresford drowned at the age of 25; both Frederick and Gilbert were 24 when they were killed in action.
Meleah Hampton, Historian, Military History Section
Image: Informal portrait of three Australian soldiers of the 13th Battalion visiting a museum in Egypt, 1915. Identified, left to right: Lt Hopkins, wounded at Gallipoli; Lt Frederick Gladstone Wilson, killed in action at Gallipoli 26 April 1915; Lt George Webster Binnie, killed in action at Gallipoli 3 May 1915.
- Australian War Memorial https://www.awm.gov.au/collection/C2278458
