A Gallipoli veteran (Bombardier, 2 Field Artillery Brigade, AIF), Frederick Loch spent his early years working as a farmer in Gippsland. Using the pseudonym 'Sydney de Loghe', Loch produced a 'true' account of his World War I experiences in his first novel The Straits Impregnable (1916). In 1918 he married the writer Joice Nankivell (q.v.) and the couple moved overseas in 1920.
After spending 18 months in Ireland, where Frederick worked as a freelance journalist, the Lochs volunteered to serve with Quaker relief units in Poland. Settling in Greece in 1923, they continued to work in refugee camps providing aid to the victims of Turkish persecution. During World War II the Lochs left Greece to assist with relief efforts for Polish refugees in Bulgaria and Romania. They returned to Greece after the war.
The Lochs combined their humanitarian work with writing. Loch collaborated on two works of non-fiction with his wife, Ireland in Travail (1922) and The River of a Hundred Ways (1924). He also wrote an unpublished novel, 'Turn'd but Not Torn' (ca.1934), which was entered in the RSSILA Centenary War Novel Competition. Based on 'personal and secondary sources', Loch's 'account describes the Australian experience at Gallipoli from the landing to the evacuation with particular emphasis on the attack on Lone Pine and Sari Bair in August 1915'. A typescript of this work is held by the Australian War Memorial Research Centre.
