Canadian woman is trying to track down Portsmouth family to reunite them with Royal Navy man's medals

Gail Leach-Wunker, based in Canada, has contacted The Fisgard Association in Portsmouth to try to track down a relative of a Portsmouth man who was born in Landport in 1909, and died in 1941, after she inherited some of his life’s memorabilia.

Frederic James White was born to William James White (b.1882) and Helen Annie Hussey (b 1883) and joined the Royal Navy as an Artificer Apprentice in HMS Fisgard on August 3, 1925.

In 1926, he won a boxing trophy as a flyweight and he then qualified as an Engine Room Artificer 5th Class on the January 1, 1930, then rose steadily through the ranks, becoming a Warrant Engineer in 1939.

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Frederic married Nora Lillian Pascoe on February 4, 1933. She was the second youngest child of 10 children born in Portsmouth to Alfred Edwin Pascoe and Amelia Osborn Austin. Gail Leach-Wunker’s mother, Gladys Frances Pascoe (1917-1990) was the baby of the family.

Alfred Edwin was the proprietor of A.E. Pascoe & Sons, Fish Market, Station Street, Landport. The business supplied fish to the dockyard. Family tradition has it that Alfred did not make the move into frozen fish as he said:

‘it will never catch on’.

Although Frederic was married for eight years to Nora, they did not have any children and in 1941, Frederic was lost at sea near Malta.

He was lost on HMS Southampton on January 11, 1941, off Malta.

His wife Nora later remarried and emigrated to Canada, and 10 years after his death Frederic’s medals were sent to Nora in Canada.

The Fisgard Association would like to trace a descendant of Frederic or of his wife’s family and can be reached at Secretary, The Fisgard Association, C/O The Royal Maritime Hotel & Club, Queen Street, Portsmouth PO1 3HS

Ms Leach-Wunker has his engraved boxing trophy and his medals, and she is looking, with the help of the association, to find a descendant of Frederic or Nora to reunite them with the family.