Frederick William Joynson's memorial, High Wycombe Cemetery
Frederick William Joynson 1892 – 1918
I was born in 1892 in High Wycombe. My parents (mother Ellen Emily and father Alfred William) married in 1885 and they had eight children in total, but four of my siblings had already died by 1911. So my death in 1918 was yet another blow for them. My father was a furniture manufacturer who later became an antique dealer and when I grew up I became his assistant. We initially lived along the West Wycombe Road but later moved to Hughenden Road and my father's income allowed us to have a maid to help my mother with the domestic work around the house.
Furniture manufacturers were always looking for new designs to incorporate within their showroom catalogues and it was not unusual for them to acquire antique chairs which they then copied, a copy always being cheaper to buy than the original antique chair. As assistant to my father I had a good career ahead of me had the Great War not intervened.
I enlisted in High Wycombe and was formerly number 1151 with the Royal Bucks Hussars but later became a Corporal in the 101st Battalion of the Machine Gun Corps (Infantry). My service number was then 165692.
I had served for over four years before I died of my wounds in France on the 12th October 1918, just a month before the war ended. I was 25 years old. I was buried at Lijssenthoek Military Cemetery, Poperinge, Belgium but I am also remembered on the memorial plaque on the family grave in High Wycombe Cemetery.
