Next of kin: Ethel Fardell (wife), 16 Church Street, Balmain
Date of enlistment: 17 February 1916
Place of enlistment: Bathurst
Age at enlistment: 29
Fate: Embarked HMAT A40 "Ceramic", Sydney, 14 April 1916. Transferred to 56th Battalion 28 May 1916. Attended Lewis Gun School in France 15 September 1916. Hospitalised with severe bout of bronchitis, transferred to England December 1916. Released from hospital April 1917. Returned to France, marched into Havre 15 Oct 1917. Taken on strength 61st Battalion in the field 26 October 1917. Killed in action, Peronne, France, 1 September 1918.
Date of death: 1 September 1918, aged 35
Buried: Peronne Communal Cemetery Extension, France, Plot III, Row D, Grave 29
Frederick Fardell was born in Orange on 9 July 1885 to Mary Ann Fardell (daughter of Thomas Fardell, 1825-1922). Fred's father is unknown.
In 1907 he married Ethel Uptin in Bega and had five children: Cecil in 1905, Victor in 1908, Daisy in 1909, Dulcie in 1912 and Allan in 1914. In 1910 or 1911 the Fardells moved to Sydney.
At the time of his enlistment in February 1916 in the 56th Battalion (Infantry), Fred was a hairdresser living in Balmain. He embarked from Sydney on 14 April 1916 on board HMAT A40 "Ceramic".
Fred's cousin, Edwin Hercules Fardell, had died from wounds received at the Battle of Lone Pine, Gallipoli, on 9 August 1915. His brother, Thomas Edward Fardell, had served as a Trooper in the 1st Battalion, Australian Commonwealth Horse in South Africa in 1902.
According to eye witness accounts, in the early morning of 1 September 1918, Fred's platoon was lying on the road near a little wood at Peronne waiting for the word to advance in the Battle of Mont Saint-Quentin. Fred was talking to some mates when he stood up and was shot in the head by a machine gun bullet from a sniper, dying instantly.
Frederick Fardell was buried at Peronne Communal Cemetery Extension, Plot 3, Row D, Grave 29.
Fred's wife Ethel never remarried and died in Newtown in 1952.
Frederick Fardell is commemorated on panel number 29 on the Roll of Honour at the Australian War Memorial in Canberra.
