Name
Walter Jeffery Bailey Tidey
1892
Conflict
First World War
Date of Death / Age
30/07/1916
24
Rank, Service Number & Service Details
Private
3835
Hertfordshire Regiment
Awards: Service Medals/Honour Awards
British War and Victory medals
Cemetery/Memorial: Name/Reference/Country
LOOS MEMORIAL
Panel 135.
France
Headstone Inscription
N/A
UK & Other Memorials
Shenley Village Memorial, St Botolph's Church Memorial, Shenleybury (now lost) (*1), Hertfordshire Regimental Memorial, All Saints Church, Hertford
Pre War
Walter Jeffrey Bailey Tidey was born in 1892 at Shenley, Hertfordshire, the son of James Arthur and Jemima Tidey, and was baptised on 24 April 1892 at Shenley. He was the youngest son of eight children although older brother Alfred James died in 1895 aged 18.
On the 1901 Census the family were living at Mansfield House Shop, Shenley, where his father was working as a grocer. They remained in Shenley in 1911 at which time, Walter was working as an assistant in his father's grocery business.
When his father died in 1913, his mother and brothers George and Stanley carried on the family grocery business with Walter working as an assistant.
Wartime Service
Walter enlisted in Hertford on 11 November 1914 and joined the Hertfordshire Regiment. He was appointed unpaid Acting Lance Corporal on 10 November 1915 and appointed paid Acting Lance Corporal the following month. He reverted to Private before being sent to France.
He left Southampton on 13 May 1916, arriving at Rouen the following day. He was appointed to No. 6 Entrenching Battalion on 30 May 1916 and promoted to Acting Lance Corporal on 31 May 1916 but reverted to Private on completing duty with No. 6 Entrenching Battalion on 11 July 1916, at which point he was attached to "B" Company, 8th Battalion Gloucestershire Regiment.
Walter was initially declared missing and believed killed in action on 30 July 1916 after an attack on the German line at Bazentin-le-Petit. He has no known grave and his name is commemorated on the Loos Memorial, France.
(N.B. his army service record states that he was buried at S.3.c (Map 57.c.SH) on 26 September 1916.)
Additional Information
*1 Believed named on the lost memorial.
His mother received a war gratuity of £7 10s and pay owing of £2 11s 11d. No pension seems to have been paid.
It is believed that Walter was killed in action before being issued with the Gloucester Regiment cap badge or service number, therefore he is recorded as being in the Hertfordshire Regiment on CWGC records and memorial.
His brother George was called up in May 1917 and served with the 4th Battalion, Northamptonshire Regiment, later being transferred to the 2rd Battalion, Bedfordshire Regiment. He was in France for three months but in January 1918 was returned to England with trench feet and spent 47 days in hospital. His brother Stanley served with the Army Service Corps and survived the war, starting a garage business in the village called Shenley Motors.
Acknowledgments
Taff Williams, Brenda Palmer
Jonty Wild, shenleyww1.wordpress.com
