Francis Dean Rifleman 1/47437 - 1st Bn. Royal Irish Rifles Formerly T3/28623, R.A.S.C. Died of wounds on Sunday 28th October 1917, age 22. Buried Trois Arbres Cemetery, Steenwerck, France Birth records indicate he was registered  as “Frank” not Francis. Frank Dean was born at Whitgreave,Stafford in the 2 nd  quarter of 1895. Frank’s mother, Ann Marsh from Haughton married farmer Abraham Dean from Stafford in 1888. Abraham’s farm was in Whitgreave, Stafford, where in 1901 Abraham was 78 and Ann was 48. Daughter Annie was 11 and son Frank was 5. Abraham’s sister-in-law Sarah Marsh, aged 50, was staying with the family as were two farm servants. Another child, Abraham John had been born in the winter of 1891 and died when he was one year old. Frank’s father Abraham Dean, husband of Ann, died in the summer of 1903, aged 79. By 1911 Ann had moved her family to “The Laurels” at the bottom of  The Rank in Gnosall, where son Frank was 15 (still at school) and daughter Annie was 21. A nephew, Thomas Marsh aged 20, a Hay Trusser by trade, was living with them.

Frank Dean enlisted with the Royal Army Service Corp, (also known as ‘Ally Sloper’s Cavalry’) whose goal was to get everything required to keep the Army on its feet and operational to where it was needed. Horses and carts, motor vehicles, railways and waterways were used in this prodigious (and vital) undertaking. Frank however, did not remain with the RASC – he transferred to the (1 st  Bn.) Royal Irish Rifles who had been in France since 1914. Frank fought at Passchendaele (during the Third Battle of Ypres for control of the Belgian city of Ypres in West Flanders which stretched between July and November, 1917). The Second (culminating) Battle of Passchendaele, around the town of that name, was fought between the 26 th  October and the 10 th  of November 1917. But Frank was wounded, and taken to the Casualty Clearing Station (hospital) at Steenwerk, which was being used by the Australians at the time, and where he died, on the 28 th  October aged 22. Frank Dean is buried in Plot II, Row A, Grave number 43, very near to the Great Cross. The inscription chosen by his mother reads ‘RESTING’.