Name
Alfred Ethelred Lancaster (*1)
29 March 1896
Conflict
First World War
Date of Death / Age
03/05/1917
20
Rank, Service Number & Service Details
Private
G/40155
Duke of Cambridge’s Own (Middlesex Regiment)
12th Bn.
Awards: Service Medals/Honour Awards
British War and Victory medals
Cemetery/Memorial: Name/Reference/Country
ARRAS MEMORIAL
Bay 7
France
Headstone Inscription
N/A
UK & Other Memorials
Welwyn Village Memorial, St Mary the Virgin Roll of Honour, Welwyn, Shenley Village Memorial
Pre War
Alfred Ethelred Lancaster was born in Shenley on 29 March 1896 the son of William and Ellen Lancaster and one of seven children, although the eldest, George, died in infancy.
On the 1901 Census the family were living in Shenley where his father was a Police Constable. Alfred was educated at Shenley Boys' School and the family remained in Shenley in 1911 at which time Alfred was working in a photographic materials factory [at Wellington and Ward, photographic material manufacturers in Boreham Wood]. He later worked as a junior clerk for the Public House Trust in Radlett.
His father retired as a Policeman in March 1916 and became Manager of the Rose and Crown Inn, Welwyn, then a Home Counties Public House Trust property, before moving to Hastings, Sussex in 1919.
Wartime Service
He enlisted at Hounslow on 23 November 1915 and initially served in the Royal Fusiliers with reg. No. G/21234 and was posted to France in March 1916. On 4 June he was wounded by shrapnel in the left arm. He was treated, initially in the Canadian General Hospital, Boulogne and returned to duty in August 1916, being almost immediately transferred to 12th Battalion, Middlesex Regiment.
Alfred was posted as ‘missing’ on 3 May 1917. His death was confirmed in November in a letter received by his mother from the British Red Cross: "We have received an account of your missing son from a man who knew him well and who apparently has written to you already, Pte. F. Buchan of the same company and who is in the Cornelia Hospital, Poole, Dorset. I am giving you his account in his own words. He says: 'I saw Lancaster killed by a shell within Fritz’s second line. We reached that and were driven back afterwards. He was about 18 years of age, nice looking and dark. We were together in the 12th Fusiliers and transferred together to the Middlesex Regt.' Buchan describes your son’s death as instantaneous, which I hope will be a comfort to you in the thought that it was free from suffering. We will send you any further report we may receive."
He has no known grave and his name is commemorated on the Arras Memorial, France.
Additional Information
His father received a war gratuity of £6 and pay owing of £8 1s 11d.
Alfred's brother Clarence Ethelbert served in the Royal West Surrey Regiment in France but survived the war and died in 1971.
N.B. Alfred is wrongly listed on the Roll of Honour as Albert.
A newspaper report report in the Herts Advertiser of 10 November 1917 also incorrectly names him as Albert Ethelbert.
Acknowledgments
Brenda Palmer, Taff Williams
Paul Jiggens, Welwyn and District History Society - www.welwynww1.co.uk, shenleyww1.wordpress.com
