Frederick Tampin was born in Melton on 1st March 1885. His parents were William and Susan (née Catchpole) who were married in 1861. They had eleven children: four daughters; Eliza, Mary Ann, Leah and Alice, and seven sons; William, Charles, George, Benjamin, Arthur, Ephraim and Frederick. All eleven children were born in the same house on Doe’s Alley. Their mother, Susan, died in 1892 and, in 1894, William married his second wife, Emma Ling. In 1901, the Tampin Family still lived in Doe’s Alley (three cottages from William’s eldest daughter, Eliza, and her family, including grandson Edgar Burrows). At this time, Frederick was working as a groom for a horse dealer.

Frederick moved away from Melton to become foreman groom at Stoke Rochford Hall, a lavish country estate in Grantham, Lincolnshire. In 1911, he married Martha Roberts Jennings in Grantham.

Little is known about Frederick’s war service; his name is included in the Melton Roll of Honour published in both the 1915 and 1916 editions of Booth’s Almanack in which it says he served with the Army Service Corps. The duration of his service appears to have taken place at home and as such, he did not qualify to receive any medals.

In 1939, Frederick and his family were living just outside Melton Mowbray in Leicestershire and he was working as a labourer in an iron foundry. He died in 1965, in Melton Mowbray, aged 80.

Frederick’s father, William, died in 1921 having lived his entire life in Melton.