Name
Stanley John Archer
Conflict
First World War
Date of Death / Age
07/11/1918
21
Rank, Service Number & Service Details
Cadet
331065
Royal Air Force
No. 9 Cadet Wing
Awards: Service Medals/Honour Awards
British War and Victory medals
Cemetery/Memorial: Name/Reference/Country
HUNTINGDON (PRIORY ROAD) CEMETERY
RRR. 37.
United Kingdom
Headstone Inscription
Not Researched
UK & Other Memorials
Sawbridgeworth Town Memorial, Great St Mary’s Church Memorial, Sawbridgeworth, Not listed on the Hertfordshire Regimental Memorial, All Saints Church, Hertford, We are not aware of any Bulbourne memorial
Pre War
Stanley was born on the 18th September 1897, in Bulbourne, Nr. Tring, Herts. the son of Albert John and Alice Jane Archer (Née Turney).
The 1901 census shows Stanley, aged 3, living with his parents, 3 brothers and sister Doris at Brook Road, (Brookdale), Sawbridgeworth, Herts. Their four children: were Lionel, Percy, Stanley and Doris. Stanley’s father was a retired RSM and served with the Herts Yeomanry. He opened a tailors shop in Bell Street, Sawbridgeworth. His mother, Alice, died and his father later remarried, to Rebecca Holgate – she already had two children: Arnold Holgate and Percy Wadsworth. It seems that all six children were Baptised together, in Sawbridgeworth. By 1911, Stanley, then aged 14, was recorded as at school, living with his father, stepmother, brothers, sisters and stepbrothers in Hoestock Road, Sawbridgeworth, Herts.
Stanley married Alice Dora Louisa Peacock in Huntingdon in 1916. They had a daughter Irene Archer, born 23rd September 1917, in Huntingdon. Alice was later recorded as living at 8, Princes St., Huntingdon.
On 20 April 1914, Stanley Archer joined the Territorials aged 17. With the service No 2461.
Wartime Service
At the outbreak of War Stanley was already a member of the 1st Battalion, Hertfordshire Regiment, Territorial Force. Territorials were not required to serve overseas, but many volunteered straighaway.
He served with the following:
- 1st Battalion Hertfordshire Regiment. Service No 105551
- 2nd/1st Hertfordshire Yeomanry
- Service No 106451 from 12th December 1914
- 2nd/1st Battalion, Dorset Yeomanry Queens Own. Service No 231663 from 26th October 1917
- 15th Battalion, Lancashire Fusiliers. Service No 331065 from 28th April 1918
- 5th Battalion, Lancashire Fusiliers. Service No 331065
- Then from 14th September 1918 the Royal Air Force No. 9 Cadet Wing.
Soon after the last posting, Stanley became ill and died on 7 November 1918 of pneumonia (Spanish flu?) at Shorecliffe Military Hospital, almost at the end of the war. He was aged 21.
Stanley Archer is buried in Priory Road Cemetery, Huntingdon.
Additional Information
The CWGC records confirm that after he died his wife re-married and, as A. D. L. Watson (formerly Archer), was living at 8 Princes St., Huntingdon”. His brothers Percy, Sidney and stepbrother Arnold Holgate also died, but his brother Lionel and stepbrother Percy Walsworth survived the war. Strangely Percy does not appear on the memorials.
Acknowledgments
Jill Butterworth (nee Archer), Jonty Wild, Stuart Osborne, David Harvey - Leventhorpe School
