Name
Victor John Mead
1897
Conflict
First World War
Date of Death / Age
21/04/1915
17
Rank, Service Number & Service Details
Private
14143
Bedfordshire Regiment
1st Bn.
Awards: Service Medals/Honour Awards
1914 /15 Star, British War and Victory medals
Cemetery/Memorial: Name/Reference/Country
OOSTTAVERNE WOOD CEMETERY
VIII.K.5
Belgium
Headstone Inscription
None
UK & Other Memorials
St Katherine’s Church Memorial, Ickleford
Pre War
Victor John Mead was born in 1897 in Ickleford, Herts, the son of John and Maria Mead (nee Bygrave).
On the 1901 Census the family were living at Village Street, Ickleford, where his father was working as a railway carriage examiner. His mother died later that year, aged 24 and his father remarried in 1906 to Eleanor Attwood Anne Titmuss. The family continued living in Village Street, Ickleford in 1911, at which time Victor was a 13 year old schoolboy and his father remained working for the railway as a carriage examiner.
Said to be living at Lower Green, Ickleford on enlistment.
Wartime Service
Victor enlisted in Hitchin in August 1914 and served with the 1st Battalion, Bedfordshire Regiment in France from 2 February 1915. (Medal Index Cards give this date, however, the National Roll of the Great War suggest he would have been drafted to France in August 1914!)
He was killed in action at Hill 60 on 21 April 1915 and originally buried near where he fell but was later exhumed with others and re-buried in Oosterverne Wood Cemetery, Belgium.
Additional Information
N.B. on the Ickleford War Memorial he is named as John Mead, however all other records give his first name as Victor.
His father John received a war gratuity of £3 and pay owing of £7 16s 10d. Pension cards exist but there is no indication of any pension being received.
Acknowledgments
Brenda Palmer
Brenda Palmer
