Name
Wilfred Newbury
1888
Conflict
First World War
Date of Death / Age
05/09/1917
29
Rank, Service Number & Service Details
Private
40375
Lancashire Fusiliers
1st/5th Bn.
Awards: Service Medals/Honour Awards
British War and Victory medals
Cemetery/Memorial: Name/Reference/Country
TYNE COT MEMORIAL
Panel 54 to 60 and 163A
Belgium
Headstone Inscription
N/A
UK & Other Memorials
St Katherine’s Church Memorial, Ickleford, Not listed on the Hertfordshire Regimental Memorial, All Saints Church, Hertford
Pre War
Wilfred Newbury was born in 1888 in Arlesey, Beds, the son of George and Susan Newbury and one of ten children, although one had died by 1911.
On the 1891 Census the family were living at Ickleford where his father was working as an Agricultural Labourer. They remained in Ickleford in 1901, then living at Lower Green, and both Wilfrid and his father were then working as Agricultural Labourers.
His mother died in 1909 and on the 1911 Census Wilfred, his brother Tom and sister Daisy were living with his widowed father at Ickleford Common, where Wilfred was working as a Cowman on a Farm.
Wartime Service
Wilfred enlisted in Hitchin and the National Roll of the Great War states that he volunteered in August 1914, was sent to France almost immediately and saw heavy fighting throughout the retreat from Mons, the Battles of the Marne, St Eloi, Loos, the Somme, Arras, Ypres. Medal Index Cards do not support this as he was only entitled to the Victory and General Service Medals and not the 1914 or 1914-15 Stars.
He was killed in action on 5 September 1917 at the Battle of Passchendaele (Third Battle of Ypres). He has no known grave and his name is commemorated on the Tyne Cot Memorial, Belgium.
(N.B. National Roll and SDIGW also state that he was formerly Reg. No. 14172 Beds and Herts Regiment.)
Additional Information
His father received a war gratuity of £13 10s and pay owing of £9 9s 5d. Unable to find any pension records.
This man’s connection to the Bedfordshire and Hertfordshire Regiment may be misleading. This combined regiment was not officially formed until 1919, but arguably the process began in May 1918 with the amalgamation of the remnants of Hertfordshire Regiment with those of the 6th Battalion, Bedfordshire Regiment. When men died before 1919 it is likely that they were officially still in one or the other of the individual regiments. In the absence of other information we are recording them as related to Hertfordshire, rather than miss such a relationship.
Acknowledgments
Brenda Palmer
Brenda Palmer, Jonty Wild
