Private Frank Lake, D Company, 1/20th Battalion London Regiment – died a prisoner of war

Frank Lake was born on 1 April 1884 at Cheriton Bishop, in Devon, one of ten children of Jeremiah, the New Inn publican, and Ellen Lake, who moved to Brookfield, near Lustleigh, before the Great War. On 9 July 1910 he married Ethel Maunder but was widowed early the following year. He was working as a gardener for Lady Audrey Buller, widow of General Sir Redvers Buller VC, at Newton St Cyres in 1914 and married Eva Lowton that year.

In September 1915, Frank enlisted in the Army Service Corps at Aldershot. He went to France in 1916 and was transferred to the 2/11th Battalion (Finsbury Rifles) London Regiment, being later posted to the Regiment’s 1/20th Battalion (Blackheath and Woolwich). Wounded in the leg and captured during the 1918 German Spring offensive, he died as a prisoner of war on 9 September 1918 in a German military hospital in Berlin, aged 34. He is buried in Berlin South-Western Cemetery and commemorated on the Lustleigh war memorial as well as on the parish church and civic war memorials at nearby Bovey Tracey.