Name
Albert Edward Whittington
Conflict
First World War
Date of Death / Age
03/12/1917
23
Rank, Service Number & Service Details
Private
G/47800
Royal Fusiliers
2nd Bn.
Awards: Service Medals/Honour Awards
British War and Victory medals
Cemetery/Memorial: Name/Reference/Country
CAMBRAI MEMORIAL, LOUVERVAL
Panel 3 and 4.
France
Headstone Inscription
No Report
UK & Other Memorials
Harpenden Town Memorial
Pre War
Albert Edward was born in 1894 in Bayswater, London, to Moses George Whittington and Fanny (nee Turner). Fanny was Moses George’s second wife, his first wife Louisa Newmarch had died in 1880. The family were living at 4 Denbigh Terrace, Kensington. His Father had died in 1897.
On the 1901 Census His mother Fanny and Sister Ada were living with married daughter Charlotte Priscilla Clark and her family at Cornwall Road, Lambeth. On the 1911 Census Albert’s occupation is recorded as printer and he is living in the National Children’s home in Bethnal Green (he was aged 16 yrs.)
Wartime Service
Albert may have joined the Royal Fusiliers in 1914 as Private 47800 as he went to France on 16 Nov 1915 with the 17th (Empire) Battalion as part of 33 Division.
The Battalion fought on the Somme in the Battles of Albert, Bazentin Ridge and High Wood, where he was probably wounded as He was returned to UK on 4 Aug 1916. He returned to France on 11 Jan 1917 joining the 2nd Battlion, Royal Fusiliers. This Battalion also fought in the as part of the Arras Offensive in 1st and 2nd Battles of the Scarpe. Later that year the Battalion were involved in the fighting at Bourlon Wood as part of the Battle of Cambrai and Albert died on 3 Dec 1917 from wounds sustained during the German counter attack on Nov 30 to 3rd Dec 1917.
Additional Information
War Gratuity of £14 10s and arrears of 15 11s 9d distributed among his mother, Sisters Rose, Ada, Charlotte and half-sister Louisa & half-brother Horace. There appears no obivious connection with Harpenden.
Acknowledgments
Neil Cooper
Mary Skinner, Harpenden & District Local History Society (www.harpenden-history.org.uk), Jonty Wild
