2nd Lieut Eric Fitzbrown

• Age: 21
• From: Hough Green, Widnes
• Regiment: The King's (Liverpool Regiment) 18th Btn
• K.I.A Saturday 1st July 1916
• Commemorated at: Thiepval Memorial
  Panel Ref: P&F1D8B &8 C.

T/2^nd Lieutenant Eric Fitzbrown, 18^th Battalion KLR.

Eric was born in Hough Green, Widnes on 02nd August 1894 and was baptised at St Michael’s C of E, Ditton, on the 02^nd September 1894. He was the fourth child of George Fitzherbert Fitzbrown (or Fitz Brown), born in Shirley, Hampshire in 1851, managing director of the Broughton Copper Company, and his wife, Eliza Forder (nee Low) who was born in Highbury, London in 1855. They married in Hampstead, London on the 27^th April 1886 at St Mary the Virgin Church, Hampstead, George was a 35 year old engineer of 110 Waterloo Road, New Bury Road, Manchester, father George, whilst Eliza was aged 31 of 29 O? Road, father William Shand.

George Fitzherbert Fitz-Brown was born in 1851 and was baptised on  09th July 1851 at Shirley, Millbrook near Southampton, son to George Brown and Mary Ann Brown (nee ‘White’). George Brown was a butcher. George Fitzherbert Fitz-Brown it can be noted adjusted his name to 'Fitz-Brown'. The boys’ mother Eliza Forder Fitz-Brown was the daughter of William Shand Low (a stationer) and Eliza Low of Highbury Place -thus she was born in Highbury & Islington on 16th March 1855 and was baptised at St. Mary’s Parish Church, Islington on 11th May 1855. 

In 1911 the family have moved to 28 Ashton Drive, Hunts Cross, Liverpool. His father, George, is shown as a managing director of a copper works and is living with his daughters Mary Isabel (20 years) and Elsy Margaret (22 years) and his eldest son, Geoffrey aged 18, an engineering student, at 28 Ashton Drive, Hunts Cross, Liverpool.

His mother, Eliza Forder, aged 56, is visiting Leonard Sumner (the managing director of the Copper Manufacturers) and family at Butt Hill, Prestwich, near Manchester. 

At the time of the 1911 Census Eric will have been resident at one of his schools.

Eric was educated at Rhos-On-Sea Preparatory School and at Aldenham School, Hertfordshire where he was a member of the Officer Training Corps and shortly before the war he was apprenticed to a firm of metal brokers. 

He joined the ranks of “C” Company 7^th Battalion the Norfolk Regiment on 29th August 1914 enlisting as No 12641 in St Pauls Churchyard, London. His enlistment papers record his occupation as a metal merchant, his height as 5' 6", weight 126lbs with very good physical development. He had a fresh complexion, with brown hair and brown eyes, his religion was stated as Church of England.  Whilst stationed at Moore Barracks, Shorncliffe, Eric successfully applied for a commission and was discharged as as a 2^nd Lieutenant in the 18^th Battalion Kings (Liverpool) Regiment (2^nd Liverpool Pals) on 23rd December 1914.

He was stationed at the hutted accommodation at Lord Derby’s estate at Knowsley Hall. On 30th April 1915 the 18th Battalion alongside the other three Pals battalions left Liverpool via Prescot Station for further training at Belton Park, Grantham. They remained here until September 1915 when they reached Larkhill Camp on Salisbury Plain.

Eric crossed over to France on board the SS Invicta on 07th November 1915 as part of No 1 Company. He was granted leave in the UK between 02nd and 13th May 1916. 

By the time of his death on the 01^st July 1916, Eric was in command of No 1 Company:

Graham Maddocks describes his part in the fighting of 1^st July 1916 -

“Second Lieutenant E. Fitzbrown was the first officer from the 18^th Battalion to reach Silesia Trench (ie the German front line) and as he led his men forward over the obliterated position the Germans were already retreating towards their support line and beyond. Fitzbrown emptied his revolver at them as they ran, and accompanied by the rest of the first wave, pressed on towards this support line. There the British came under machine gun fire from the high ground on the right until the gun was finally silenced... the German support line was then systematically cleared by bombing parties.” However, the Germans quickly recovered from the effects of the allied bombardment and brought their machine guns into concealed positions “and poured a devastating fire onto the third and fourth waves of attacking Pals who were either still leaving the British front line or just crossing No Man’s Land.”  Captain de Bels Adams and Lieutenant George Herdman were killed in the ensuing fighting and “the tenacious Fitzbrown was shot through the head and killed”.

The Commander of the 18th Battalion, Lieutenant Colonel E.H.Trotter DSO found Eric's body the following day, where he fell.

Eric's body, found by Lt Col Trotter, was evidently lost or subsequently destroyed as he has no known grave and is commemorated on the Thiepval Memorial.

The Thiepval Memorial, the Memorial to the Missing of the Somme, bears the names of more than 72,000 officers and men of the United Kingdom and South African forces who died in the Somme sector before 20 March 1918 and have no known grave. Over 90% of those commemorated died between July and November 1916.

On 01st August 1932 the Prince of Wales and the President of France inaugurated the Thiepval Memorial in Picardy. The inscription reads: “Here are recorded the names of officers and men of the British Armies who fell on the Somme battlefields between July 1915 and March 1918 but to whom the fortune of war denied the known and honoured burial given to their comrades in death.”

Eric is also remembered on the following Memorials:

St Peter’s Church, Church Road, Woolton

Woolton Golf Club, Speke Road, Hunts Cross, Liverpool

Ramblers FC in Crosby

Rhos on Sea School

St Hilda’s Parish Church, Speke Road, Hunts Cross, Liverpool.

His brother, Geoffrey, born in 1892, enlisted as a Private in the Public Schools Battalion of the 21^st Royal Fusiliers and was commissioned as a Second Lieutenant in the Durham Light Infantry, serving in France from 14^th November 1915. He was wounded on 23^rd October 1916 when he went over the top with his Platoon and sustained his wounds while helping to dig a link trench. Although tended by a fellow officer and taken via Field Ambulance to a Casualty Clearing Station, he died of his wounds next day.

Geoffrey now rests at grave, 1B 10, in Grove Town Cemetery, Meaulte.

In September 1916, the 34th and 2/2nd London Casualty Clearing Stations were established at this point, known to the troops as Grove Town, to deal with casualties from the Somme battlefields. They were moved in April 1917 and, except for a few burials in August and September 1918, the cemetery was closed. Grove Town Cemetery contains 1,395 First World War burials. The cemetery was designed by Sir Edwin Lutyens.

Their father died on 26th April 1931 leaving estate valued at £53,292 1s 1d. 

Their mother died, aged 82, on 26th November 1937 and was buried at St Peter's Church, Woolton on the 29th November.  

The Liverpool Scroll of Honour biography to Eric Fitzbrown is listed below:

Splendid work was done in the opening day of the 1916 Somme offensive by the “Pals” Brigade.

The 18^th Kings(Liverpool) Regiment suffered that day, as well as in a following engagement, exceedingly heavily.

Second – Lieutenant Eric Fitzbrown was one of the many heroic officers who fell in that wonderful charge. Colonel Trotter, who did not long survive that terrible ordeal, told how the young leader was mortally hit nearly at the final objective after he and his men had carried it in irresistible style. He explained that the gallant young officer, who led his company and was the first man to enter the enemy’s front line trench, where he had emptied his revolver, seeing the situation, took two bombs in his hand, and attempted to bomb the position, but was hit by a bullet from a enemy snipers.

“I can only say how we all loved him – so cheery and brave, and such a good officer”, wrote the Colonel, and they were the words of a commander who had for his men, and received from them in return, an attachment seldom approached in the army. “It was a great and glorious day, the victory was complete, the Battalion behaved magnificently, the cost was heavy, but the objective was most important, for on their success depended the whole operation. I know that it cannot replace your loss, but that he fell in the hour of victory, still young and happy, comforted me slightly. “

Eric Fitzbrown belonged to Hunt’s Cross, and amongst these memoirs also appears that of his brother, Geoffrey, who, too, was killed on the Somme. Eric was educated at Rhos-on – Sea, and afterwards at Aldenham School, Hertfordshire. Shortly before the war he had been appointed to a firm of metal brokers, but he interrupted his career as soon as the call was sounded, joining the ranks of the 7^th Norfolk Regiment. Early in 1915 he received his commission in the 18^th Kings (Liverpool) Regiment, and he formed many happy comradeships at Knowsley, Grantham, and Salisbury Plain. Cheerful and loveable and endowed with a manly courage and a high sense of duty, he died when only 21 years of age.

Grateful thanks are extended to Alan Walker, who contacted this website, for providing the information concerning both Eric and Geoffrey's lineage.  

We currently have no further information on Eric Fitzbrown, if you have or know someone who may be able to add to the history of this soldier, please contact us.