Milligan, Frederick Albert Woods

2nd Lieutenant Frederick Albert Woods Milligan

Milligan was born at Thunder Bay, Ontario, Canada on 4th January 1896 to William George Milligan and Elizabeth Milligan nee Campbell.

In 1901 Milligan (5) was living with his great-aunt Jane McKenney in house 2, Culfore, Ballymascanlon, Co. Louth and his parents and his sister, Bertha Alma (9).

In 1911 Milligan is boarding with the Armstrong family in house 24, Drumcar, Co. Louth.  

Following his education at the Educational Institute, Dundalk, Milligan joined the Belfast Banking Company and is recorded as working in Enniskillen and Drogheda branches. Gertrude Plunkett signed the Bankers Guarantee. She may have been a relation or family friend, the Honourable Gertrude Plunkett (*) of Ballymascanlon House, Dundalk.

Belfast Bank - Bankers Guarantee ledger sheet

Milligan volunteered and enlisted into the Leinster Regiment with Service Number was 7/2205. His Medal Index Card records his first theatre of war as France from 1916.

F A W Milligan - Medal Index Card

He was serving with the 7th Bn. Royal Inniskilling Fusiliers as a 2nd Lieutenant when he was killed in action on 29th April 1916 aged 19. Frederick is buried in the Philosphe British Cemetery, Mazingarbe, Pas De Calais, France.   

The Belfast News Letter of 11th May1916 reports:

Milligan is remembered on Ireland's Memorial Record:

Administration of the estate was granted at Armagh to Susan V McKenney, Spinster. Milligan's effects were £81 14s 8d.

Milligan is also remembered on the Drogheda War Memorial. My thanks to John McCormick of the Facebook group 'War graves & memorials, Northern Ireland' for the following photograph.



(*) Gertrude (1841-1924) was an Irish aristocrat from Co. Louth. She was one of six children to Thomas Plunket (1792-1866) a junior Church of Ireland Clergyman who later became the Bishop of Tuam, Killala and Achonry and after his father died became the 2nd Baron Plunket. Her mother was Louise Jane Foster of Fanevalley, Co. Louth and MP for Dunleer. She was the granddaughter of William Plunket, Lord Chancellor of Ireland, who became the first Baron Plunket. Gertrude lived with her sister, Katherine who inherited from her mother one of the family’s ancestral homes, Ballymascanlon House, near Dundalk.