Born in the parish of St. James's, London c.1833.
Enlisted at London on the 3rd of November 1850.
Age 17 years 1 month.
Height: 5' 7".
Trade: Labourer.
[Wendy Leahy gives a slightly different date, age and height.]
Taken prisoner of war at Balaklava, 25th October 1854.
Next of kin: Father, John Fredericks, living in Cavan Street, Golden Square, London, W.1.
Fredericks rejoined the regiment from Russian captivity on the 22nd of October 1855.
A nominal roll of men of the regiment at the Cavalry Depot, Scutari, made out on the 9th of November 1855, shows him as a Prisoner under sentence of Court-martial from the 4th of November.
See record of 1292 Joseph Armstrong, 4th Light Dragoons, for details of the Courts-martial held on the returned prisoners of war.
Charles Frederick's statement to the Court:
I was with the 4th Light Dragoons in the Charge at Balaclava on the 25th Octr. 1854 and in returning my horse was shot under me and injured me in its fall. I was at once surrounded and taken prisoner. The Russians then sent me to Simpheropol where I remained in hospital for four months. I was afterwards sent twelve hundred miles into Russia, where I remained until the 27th of August 1855, when together with some other prisoners I was sent to Odessa from whence I was forwarded to Balaclava and reached that place on the 26th Octr. 1855.
Sergeant George Newman of the 23rd Foot tells of him in the edited version of his diary, published as The Prisoners of Voronesh (1977).
"There was also a young man of the 4th Light Dragoons by the name of Fredericks came up. He was a good speaker of French, in fact he could speak it like a native. He was often our interpreter, for the chief clerk at the police master's office could also speak French well. Fredericks could also speak German and was soon a favourite with the police master and several gentlefolk of the town. He had presents coming to him from one or the other daily, but most of all from a lady, who even sent him a bedstead, bed and bedding, and a tea service." (p.200)
Newman mentions a number of occasions on which Fredericks translated (e.g. pp. 228, 232) and also records that Fredericks took part in the amateur dramatic performances (p.246).
Fredericks was tried by a Court-martial at Aldershot on the 26th of January 1858 [WL gives 15.2.1858] for "Endeavouring to produce disease" [sic] and sentenced to 56 days' imprisonment with hard labour. (It has not yet been possible to define the exact nature of this charge.)
[PB: What could it have meant?])
On "sick furlo" from the 1st of April and died in London on the 2nd of April 1859.
Entitled to the Crimean medal with clasps for Alma, Balaclava and Sebastopol, but the latter clasp is not recorded on the medal roll.
St. Catherine's House records show him as dying in the St. Martin's in the Fields District of London during the April-June quarter of 1859.
His death certificate shows that he died at 6, Agar Street, Strand, Westminster, on the 2nd of April 1859 at the age of 26 years from "Disease of the Heart and Congestion of the Lungs." He was shown as being a Private in the 4th Regt. Light Dragoons. A Thomas Norrington, of the same address, was present at, and the informant of, his death (There is a copy of this in the "Certificates" file.)