Name
Herbert Alfred Howard
1887
Conflict
First World War
Date of Death / Age
28/06/1917
30
Rank, Service Number & Service Details
Private
37556
Bedfordshire Regiment
1st.
Awards: Service Medals/Honour Awards
British War and Victory medals
Cemetery/Memorial: Name/Reference/Country
ARRAS MEMORIAL
Bay 5
France
Headstone Inscription
No Report
UK & Other Memorials
Harpenden Town Memorial, Chapel War Memorial (now in Methodist Church), Kinsbourne Green, Not on the Hinxworth memorial, Luton Hoo Memorial, Bedfordshire
Pre War
Herbert Alfred Howard was born in 1887 in Hinxworth, Herts, the son of Charley Howard, a farm labourer, and Constantia (nee Bryant). Herbert was eldest of ten children, but one had died in infancy.
On the 1891 Census the family were living at Royston Road, Litlington, Cambridgeshire, but had moved to Low Meadows, Annables Harpenden by 1901. By the time of the 1911 Census the family had moved to Fiddlers Green, Kinsbourne Green, East Hyde, nr Luton, Beds and Herbert was working as a cowman.
Wartime Service
Herbert enlisted in Bedford and joined the 1st Battalion, Bedfordshire Regiment as Private 37556.
He was with the 1st Battalion in France near Arras when he was killed in action on 28 June 1917,(possibly during the Battle of Oppy Wood.) He has no known grave and his name is commemorated on the Arras Memorial, France.
Additional Information
His mother received a war gratuity of £3 and pay owing of £8 8s 7d, She also received a pension of 6 shillings a week.
His brother Arthur also served. It is believed he had been a member of the Bedfordshire Yeomanry, and enlisted into the Bedfordshire Regiment, under reg. no. 10471 on 6 August 1914. He survived the war but was discharged on 23 June 1915, having suffered terrible injuries from a gun shot wound to his face.
Acknowledgments
Neil Cooper, Brenda Palmer
Gareth Hughes, Felicity Brimblecombe, Harpenden & District Local History Society (www.harpenden-history.org.uk), Rosemary Ross, Jonty Wild
