Trooper Frederick William Owen Potts was a Private in the Berkshire Yeomanry during the First World War and fought in the Gallipoli Campaign in Turkey. He was born and raised in Reading and was awarded the Victoria Cross in October 1915, after endangering his own life to drag a wounded comrade on a shovel from the battlefield at the Battle of Scimitar.
He is the only person from the town to be given the honour. Potts spent two years being treated in hospital before he was discharged from the Army as medically unfit. He returned to Reading where he ran a tailors shop in Alpine Street. He is buried at Reading Crematorium. The memorial to Trooper Potts is sited outside Forbury Gardens and depicts Potts dragging a wounded Arthur Andrews to safety.
