Kenora Great War Project

 

Personal Details
Date of BirthJuly 7, 1893
Place of BirthShelborne, Ontario
CountryCanada
Marital StatusSingle
Next of KinFather: Fred Campbell, Mother: Janet Campbell, Wpg MB
Trade / CallingCommercial Traveller
ReligionPresbyterian
Service Details
Regimental Number15065/Lt.
Service Record Link to Service Record
Battalion1st Reserve Battalion
ForceCanadian Expeditionary Force
BranchCanadian Infantry
Enlisted / ConscriptedEnlisted
Date of EnlistmentAugust 27, 1914
Age at Enlistment21
Theatre of ServiceEurope
Prisoner of WarNo
Survived WarYes
Death Details
Date of DeathJune 3, 1929
Age at Death36
Buried AtElmwood Cemetery, Winnipeg, Manitoba
Plot13-G0239

Campbell, Frederick Kenneth

Frederick Kenneth Campbell was one of the early volunteers for Canada’s war effort. He joined the 34th Fort Garry Horse, a cavalry unit, on Aug. 27, 1914, in Winnipeg as part of Canada’s First Contingent of 30,000 men being raised for the war effort. The 34th, which numbered about 250 officers and men, was merged with other units when it arrived at Valcartier to create an infantry unit, the 6th Battalion.

The battalion, numbering 1,223 officers and men, sailed for England Sept. 28, 1914 aboard the SS Lapland. After a wet fall training as infantry the men were informed in January 1915 they would be reformed along with other units as a mounted force under the designation the Canadian Cavalry Brigade. The 6th Battalion, which had taken the name the Fort Garry’s, was to serve as the remount depot for the brigade.

Canada’s cavalry units saw only limited action in the field, being used mainly as support troops at the divisional and corps level with units being re-assigned and reformed on several occasions, or being deployed as unmounted troops to fight alongside infantry battalions.  Their main battles as mounted troops were at Cambrai in November 1917 and Amiens in August 1918.

On Aug. 5, 1915 Kenneth Campbell was transferred from the Fort Garrys to the Divisional Cavalry and sent to France.  In January 1916, Canadian cavalry units were again re-organized and the Fort Garry’s were sent to France as the third regiment in the Canadian Cavalry Brigade, arriving in France in February. By that time Campbell had been assigned to the Assistant Provost Marshals corp and would not rejoin his original unit for the duration of the war.

As well as his time with the Fort Garry’s, Kenneth Campbell’s various postings included the 1st and 3rd Divisional Cavalry, the Canadian Light Horse, the Assistant Provost Marshals Corp, the Cavalry Remount Depot and the 1st Reserve Battalion.

Campbell was promoted a Lance Corporal in 1917 and full Corporal in March 1918. In May of 1918 he left the cavalry and France for England and training as an infantry officer. He received his commission on Nov. 18, 1918, a week after the war ended while attached to the 1st Reserve Battalion.

He returned to Canada the next month and was demobilized effective Jan. 2, 1919 in Winnipeg.

The Campbell family — Frederick Alexander, Janet, and children Thomas McAdar, Mary Alexandra, Lilias Mackey, Duncan, Randolph Arthur, Katherine and Frederick Kenneth — had come to what was then Rat Portage, Ontario in 1893 just after Kenneth was born, from Shelborne, Ontario.

Frederick, born in Stanley, New Brunswick in 1850, and Janet (nee McDonald), born In Ireland in 1850, had married in Shelborne where Fred worked as a merchant.

By 1911 the family had moved to Winnipeg, leaving Mary, who married Jacob Seegmiller in 1900, and Randolph, a watchmaker, in Kenora. Randolph (Dolph) also enlisted, serving with the 8th Battalion in France. He was killed in action by an exploding shell on Sept. 29, 1916.

Frederick, Sr. and Janet returned to Kenora by 1918, Janet passed away Dec. 29 that year, just a week after Kenneth’s return from the war and a visit with her in Kenora. Frederick died in 1930. Both are interred in the Elmwood Cemetery, Winnipeg.

Like his father and brothers Duncan and Thomas, Kenneth Campbell worked as a commercial traveller (salesman) for a building company based out of Winnipeg.

Kenneth Campbell died on June 3, 1929 in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan.   He is buried in Elmwood Cemetery, Winnipeg, Manitoba.

by Bob Stewart


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