A STAR pupil who won the admiration of French soldiers during the First World War has been remembered 100 years since his death.


Former Bootham School pupil Frederic Garratt Taylor was killed by a shell on September 25, 1915, when he was 21-years-old.


He was a member of the Friends Ambulance Unit and was on duty picking up wounded soldiers when he was fatally wounded.


However, his personality and efforts during the war made sure he was fondly remembered by those who served alongside him.


Documents seen since his death revealed how much Taylor, who studied at Bootham School between 1908 and 1912, was cherished.


In less than a year after Taylor died his Commandant in France was to write of his death.


He wrote: “We have just returned from his graveside in the little cemetery here, a company of over a hundred members, nurses, and officers of the unit who went to pay a last tribute of honour and affection to a comrade whom every one of us loved, one of the brightest, most willing, and cheeriest members of the unit.”


Little else is known of his heroism except it was sufficient for the French authorities to posthumously award him the Croix de Guerre medal in honour of his bravery.