Thomas Frederick Killick (1917-1937) – Sussex Brigader
Thomas Frederick Killick, ‘Freddie’, was born in January 1917 at East Preston, West Sussex. In 1921 the family were living in Heathside, Ewhurst, Surrey, but moved to Electric Parade, Woodford, Surrey in 1930. Some time before Freddie went to Spain, his widowed mother and siblings had moved north, to Norwood Avenue, Southport. Brigader Maurice Levine, in his book ‘Cheetham to Cordova’, writes that Freddie Killick, who came from Southport, was living in Manchester. This suggests that Freddie had taken a job as a clerk away from the family home.
When Freddie arrived in Spain, on 30th November 1936, he was enrolled in No 1 Company, but was not issued with a Brigade Number. On 12 February 1937 , the first day that the newly-formed British Battalion took part in the Battle of Jarama, Freddie was killed. He would have recently turned 20 and had been in Spain for less than three months.
Freddie Killick is mentioned with affection by George Brown in a letter from Spain where he itemises the recent casualties incurred at Jarama by Brigaders from the Manchester area. Freddie is commemorated on a plaque donated by Merseyside County Council ‘To the Merseyside men of the International Brigades who fell in the struggle for democracy in Spain’.
Freddie Killick on the Merseyside memorial plaque
Pauline Fraser