Name
Horace Mead
1878
Conflict
First World War
Date of Death / Age
05/02/1915
Rank, Service Number & Service Details
Private
3/8519
Bedfordshire Regiment
4th Bn.
Awards: Service Medals/Honour Awards
1914 /15 Star, British War and Victory medals
Cemetery/Memorial: Name/Reference/Country
DOVERCOURT CEMETERY
4. J. 20.
United Kingdom
Headstone Inscription
None
UK & Other Memorials
Not on the Hemel Hempstead Memorial.
We are not aware of any memorial in Piccotts End
Pre War
Horace Mead was born in 1878 in Piccotts End, Hemel Hempstead, the son of George and Betsy Mead and baptised on 17 July 1878 at Hemel Hempstead.
On the 1881 Census the family were living at Dodds Lane Cottage, Piccotts End, where his father was working as a labourer. They were at 17 Piccotts End Lane in 1891 by which time 12 year old Horace was already working as a General Labourer. His father was working as a Highway Labourer and his mother worked in a local shop.
In 1901 his widowed mother was living at 59 Piccotts End, Hemel Hempstead with his nephew Percy and brother William, his father having died in 1900.
He married Annie Blanche Wakefield on 12 March 1904 at Christchurch, Hemel Hempstead. Annie who was 20 years older than Horace, had been born in Scotland and on the 1901 Census was lodging in Berkhamsted with her two sons, Frederick and Arthur. She died on 13 September 1913 at Glen View Road, Hammerfield, Hemel Hempstead.
Horace was recorded as living in Piccotts End when he enlisted in Watford in 1914 and pension records give his mother's address as 66 Piccotts End, Hemel Hempstead.
Wartime Service
He enlisted in Watford at the outbreak of war and served with the 4th Battalion, Bedfordshire Regiment. He served in France from 23 November 1914 but was wounded and invalided home.
He was injured in a motor accident in Dovercourt on 5 February 1915 and died at the Great Eastern Hotel Hospital, Harwich, aged 36. He is buried at Dovercourt Cemetery, Tendring, Essex.
(N.B. the National Roll of the Great War states that he was killed at Ypres which is incorrect.
Additional Information
His mother received a war gratuity of £5.
Uncle to Percy Mead (Reg. No. 20307, Bedfordshire Regiment ) who died 14 July 1916 and is named on the Hemel Hempstead memorial.
Acknowledgments
Brenda Palmer
www.dacorumheritage.org.uk,
