Jean Longstaff has submitted the following:-

Catherine Brown had previously been married to Thomas Augustus Nixon but after he died in 1886 she had another three children, Ernest, Henry and Alice, with William Lee before she married him in 1894 and gave birth to Frederick on 30th June the following year. It is thought that William was a sailor and he was away from home at the time of the 1901 census when Catherine and all seven children, siblings and half siblings, were living in Sunderland. In August 1910 Fred sailed from Liverpool to Montreal on board the SS Victorian, making for Disley, Saskatchewan and work as a farmer, and a temporary home with his cousin Jo Robinson.

On 8th November 1915 Fred travelled the 30 miles from Disley to Regina to enlist in the Canadian Expeditionary Force. He gave as his next of kin his married sister Alice Leathes in Sunderland and became Private 105142 attached to the 68th Battalion. Arriving back in Liverpool in early May 1916 and a posting to a camp on the south coast, after five weeks he found himself in France with the 28th Battalion joining them in Brigade Support, before entering the trenches at St. Eloi.

A year later, in November 1916, Private 105142 was transferred to the 6th Canadian Trench Mortar Battery, where over time he became the number one of the gun crew. On 12th February 1918 Fred was loading one of the mortars and was wounded by the premature explosion of the Stokes bomb which exploded in the gun without it being fired. He was taken to No.6 Casualty Clearing Station, but died from his wounds the same day. An enquiry was held but no blame was attached to Private Lee, but to a possible faulty detonator.

Frederick Lee is remembered in Sunderland on S140.048 part 9 page 201

He is also remembered in Canada on their Virtual War Memorial and in their Book of Remembrance.

Canadian Book of Remembrance
Canadian Virtual War Memorial
The CWGC entry for Private Lee