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Sgt. Fred Cotton MM.
British Army 2nd Battalion Kings Own Yorkshire Light Infantry
from:Little Heck, Pontefract
Fred Cotton never spoke too much about his experiences and we haven't been able to find out exactly what he won his Military Medal for. We have his medals within the extended family and have his Medal Card showing 3 x GSMs and MM. We have an image of him in hospital We also have an image of him on horseback, which I understand was quite common. He was a farmer and as such was a very capable rider. We know he was promoted to Sjt and mentioned in the London Gazette for his MM, we believe both MM and promotion to Sjt happened on the same day.
He was born in Little Heck in 1897 and lived on until 1972 but was a fiercely secretive man. He left us a cryptic comment in a letter written to the new wife of his youngest son, Eric Cotton, who emigrated to New Zealand as a 10 bob Pomme. The comment he left was that "we are related to royalty, sadly on the wrong side of the sheets" we have found only one illegitimate child, his grandfather born 1805 and he took his mother's name of Cotton. They lived very close to the house of a Viscount who died without children, but we can find no link as yet, but that's what we think the story may relate to.
We are all fiercely proud of him, and being ex military myself, he is someone I admired, without ever meeting him.
