Name
Alfred Henry Dwight
1895
Conflict
First World War
Date of Death / Age
04/09/1917
22
Rank, Service Number & Service Details
Private
202817
Essex Regiment
11th Bn.
Awards: Service Medals/Honour Awards
British War and Victory medals
Cemetery/Memorial: Name/Reference/Country
ETAPLES MILITARY CEMETERY
XXV. O. 10A.
France
Headstone Inscription
None
UK & Other Memorials
Northchurch Village Memorial, St Mary’s Church Window, Northchurch, St Peters Church, Berkhamsted, Not listed on the Hertfordshire Regimental Memorial, All Saints Church, Hertford
Pre War
Alfred Henry Dwight was born in Eddy Street, Gossoms End, Northchurch in 1895, the youngest son of William Dwight and Mary Halsey, and was baptised on 5 May 1895 in Berkhamsted. He was one of seven children.
On the 1901 Census he was living with his widowed father and siblings Frank, Annie, Fred and Arthur at 5 Eddy Street, Berkhamsted. (His mother had died earlier that year.) Older brothers William and George were living in London.
By 1911 he was living with his father at the home of Walter and Eliza Bryant (his sister and brother-in-law) at 2 Eddy Street, in Berkhamsted and working as an Errand Boy.
Prior to enlistment he was a teacher at Gossoms End Sunday School.
Wartime Service
Alfred enlisted into the Hertfordshire Regiment as Private 266960 later transferring to 11th Battalion Essex regiment as Private 202817.
At the end of August 1917, Alfred's Battalion took over the trenches at Hill 70 near Lens, which Canadian troops had captured a few days before. Within a few days, Alfred was seriously injured during a heavy German artillery attack and was taken to the Red Cross Hospital at Etaples where he died on 4 September1917, aged 22.
He is buried in Etaples Military Cemetery, France.
Additional Information
His father received a war gratuity £8 and pay owing of £4 19s 5d. Pension cards exist with his father as dependant but there is no indication of a pension being paid.
Acknowledgments
Neil Cooper, Brenda Palmer
Jonty Wild, 'Northchurch Memories' (Facebook) 2 September 2017
