Frank Bishop





Westbourne Street (picture from SWOP website)

Memorial for Frank Bishop in High Wycombe Cemetery





Frank Bishop 1892 - 1917

My name is Frank Bishop and I was born in High Wycombe on the 21st April 1892. My parents were called Edward Clifford and Sarah Jane Bishop and throughout my childhood we all lived together in a small house on 19 Westbourne Street, which now sits in the centre of town. My father owned a small sweetshop and tobacconists and my mother helped him in the shop. I worked as a dairyman and also delivered milk.

When the First World War broke out in July 1914, I was keen to join the fight against the Germans. Just two months later, I joined the 7th Service Battalion of the Wiltshire Regiment. This battalion was formed in September 1914 at Devizes as part of the Third New Army- also known as K3- of the so-called Kitchener’s scheme. Soon after its formation, the battalion moved to Codford, Salisbury Plain, to become part of the 79th Brigade, and assigned to the 26th Division.

During the first few years of war, our battalion was very much on the move and I soon became accustomed to being transferred to many different locations. Firstly, in November 1914 we went to Marlborough, and then in April the following year we moved to Sutton Veny with the 34th Divison to begin our training. Due to its proximity to Warminster and Salisbury Plain, Sutton Veny was an ideal location for us Brits during the early stages of war to barrack troops for training before being deployed to northern France. I remember seeing soldiers and young men arriving directly from their homes on call up. One villager commented, ”you’d see them marching through Tytherington from Heytesbury Station. They didn't have their uniforms yet, and you could tell what they had been - the fishermen in their jerseys, and the clerks in their stiff collars”.

After a year of intense training, we were eventually mobilised for war and landed in France in September 1915, before being reassigned to the Mediterranean in November as part of the British forces fighting in Salonika. As part of this division, we were engaged in various actions against the Bulgarian Army including the Battle of Horseshoe Hill in 1916, and First and Second Battles of Doiran in 1916 and 1917. Here in Salonika, living conditions for men on both sides were harsh- winter and summer brought extremes of climate and disease, especially malaria, which caused many more casualties, in addition to those caused by enemy fire.

It was during the 1917 Battle of Doiran that I was killed in action. The battle in April 1917 was a bitter, harrowing four-day artillery barrage- the British fired about 100,000 shells followed by a Bulgarian counter-barrage in which around 10,000 shells were fired. It was a painful struggle and I died on the 21st April, on my 25th birthday, amongst the shrieking blasts of shells and piercing cries of men falling down with me.

Unlike many others, my body was luckily found and is buried at the Doiran Military Cemetery in the north of Greece, along with 2172 other identified men. My name is also displayed at the district memorial plaque at the Wycombe Hospital. The plaque reads- ‘to the glorious memory of the brave men whose names are here recorded who at the call of King and country left all that was dear to them, endured hardship, faced danger and finally passed out of the sight of men by the path of duty and self-sacrifice, giving up their own live that others might live in freedom’.





Researched by Neill George, Gill Evans, and the girls of Wycombe Abbey School

Back to map