The Forgotten Uniform – A Story Rediscovered
A Remembrance Sunday story from The Emporium, Yeovil.
For more than 35 years, a box containing two military uniforms lay undisturbed in the loft of a house in Yeovil.
Forgotten, perhaps. But certainly not without a story.
Recently, the box was brought into The Emporium. Inside were beautifully tailored Royal Artillery officers’ uniforms, complete with their original insignia. Sewn into both jackets was a tailor’s label bearing a name:
F. W. Volrath, Royal Artillery.
Hawkes & Co, 1 Savile Row, London.
16 February 1939.
We were intrigued. Who was this man? Where had he served? And how had his uniforms come to spend so many decades hidden away in a Yeovil loft?
So we began researching.
We discovered that Frederick William Volrath was born in Fulham in 1909. In 1932, he married Margaret Doris Oaten, and together they had two sons. At the time of his marriage, Frederick was working as a bus driver.
On 8 February 1939, as Europe edged towards war, Frederick was commissioned as a Second Lieutenant in the 84th Anti-Aircraft Regiment, Royal Artillery, part of the Territorial Army.
Remarkably, just eight days later, his uniforms were dated by the prestigious military tailors Hawkes & Co of Savile Row.
The original shoulder insignia are still present, identifying him as a newly commissioned Territorial officer.
Our research then led us thousands of miles from Somerset.
By September 1942, a Captain F. W. Volrath was recorded as commanding the 151st (East Africa) Heavy Anti-Aircraft Battery, a unit whose wartime service included East Africa and Madagascar. We believe this was our Frederick, although further research is continuing.
After the war, the Volrath family made their home in Uganda, where Frederick worked as a Transport Officer. Passenger records have helped us piece together this remarkable chapter of his life.
Frederick died in 1988, aged 79, with his death registered in Yeovil.
And so, almost four decades later, his uniforms have resurfaced in the very town where his life ended.
This Remembrance Sunday, we are proud to display Frederick William Volrath’s uniforms in our shop window.
They are more than beautiful examples of British military tailoring. They are tangible reminders of a man who left his ordinary civilian life to serve his country, and of the countless individual stories that lie behind the history of the Second World War.
There are still gaps in Frederick’s story, and we intend to continue researching his service and the journey of these uniforms.
Sometimes history isn’t found in a museum or an archive.
Sometimes it arrives at your shop door in a forgotten box.
We will remember them.
The Emporium, Yeovil
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