Name
Albert Exall
Conflict
First World War
Date of Death / Age
18/04/1915
Rank, Service Number & Service Details
Private
L/5473
The Queen's (Royal West Surrey Regiment)
1st Bn.
Awards: Service Medals/Honour Awards
Not Yet Researched
Cemetery/Memorial: Name/Reference/Country
YPRES (MENIN GATE) MEMORIAL
Panel 45 and 47.
Belgium
Headstone Inscription
Not Researched
UK & Other Memorials
Bushey Town Memorial, St James’ Church Memorial, Bushey
Pre War
Born in Bermondsey in 1880, Albert Exall was the son of Frederick and Sarah Ann Exall of 29, Cottage Row, Walworth, Southwark. He was baptised at St John the Evangelist Church in Walworth on 19 September 1880. He had a brother, named William James Exall.
There is very little information about Albert and his family, but the document ‘Canada, British Regimental Registers of Service 1756-1900, Foot Soldiers 1868-1900 Register’ includes a record for Albert which shows he attested in London in 1889, aged 19, as Private 5473 with the 97th Foot Soldiers. He gave his trade at enlistment as a Labourer and was living in Walworth at that time.
Although the 97th Foot were garrisoned at Halifax in Canada between 1877 and 1880, it is not clear whether they had any further presence in Canada, nor whether Albert had actually been posted there. The 97th Foot was amalgamated with the 50th Regiment of Foot in 1881 to form the Queen’s Own Royal West Kent Regiment. The 50th Foot was embodied in 1756 as the 1st Battalion and the 97th as the 2nd Battalion in 1824.
The 2nd Battalion was sent to Egypt in 1889 for six months, returning to England in March 1900 to mobilise into a new 8th Division going to South Africa, which was in the middle of the Second Boer War. It stayed in South Africa until early November 1902, when it left Cape Town for Ceylon, then served in Hong Kong, Singapore, Peshawar and Multan before the outbreak of the First World War.
Wartime Service
Albert had attested in London in 1889 with the 97th Foot Soldiers, which was later amalgamated into the 2nd Battalion of the Queen's Own Royal West Kent Regiment. It is not known at what point Albert moved to the 1st Battalion, which was a regular army unit stationed in Dublin at the outbreak of war and one of first units to be deployed to France.
Albert served in France and Flanders and was killed in action on 18 April 1915. He is remembered with honour at the Menin Gate Memorial at Ypres in Belgium and is commemorated on the Bushey Memorial. His death was also recorded in the St James’ Parish Magazine.
There is a memorial to Royal West Kent Regiment in Brenchley Gardens, Maidstone, Kent which was designed by Lutchens and looks similar in style to the Cenotaph in London.
Additional Information
The Commonwealth War Graves Commission database gives the address of William James Exall as 2, Grove Cottages, Falconer Rd., Bushey, Watford. Information provided with the kind permission of Bushey First World War Commemoration Project – Please visit www.busheyworldwarone.org.uk.
Acknowledgments
Andrew Palmer
Dianne Payne - www.busheyworldwarone.org.uk, Jonty Wild
