Frederick Hillebrandt

Bank: Coutts & Co

Place of work: London Strand office

Died: 22 March 1917

Frederick Edmund Hillebrandt was born in London in 1893, the son of Edmund Henry Hillebrandt, a civil servant, and his wife Grace Maria Elizabeth. After leaving school he went to work as a boy clerk in the General Post Office, where his father was an Assistant Superintendent, but in September 1913 he moved to Coutts & Co as a clerk.

In August 1914 Hillebrandt left the bank to join the army, initially in the University of London Officers Training Corps. He was commissioned into the Suffolk Regiment in March 1915. He left for Egypt in January 1916, and fought in the Senussi campaign there. In April 1916 he transferred to the Royal Flying Corps, serving with the Salonika Force. He subsequently returned to England to help in the effort to combat hostile air raids.

Second Lieutenant Frederick Edmund Hillebrandt was gravely injured on 15 March 1917, when the plane in which he was a passenger crashed at Wye Aerodrome in Kent. The pilot showed considerable bravery in rescuing him from the burning aircraft, but Second Lieutenant Hillebrandt died a week later, on 22 March 1917. He was 23 years old.

Frederick Hillebrandt is commemorated on a bank war memorial at Coutts & Co, London 440 Strand.