Name
Walter Pepper (MM)
Conflict
First World War
Date of Death / Age
29/06/1918
33
Rank, Service Number & Service Details
Lance Corporal
P/13932
Military Police Corps
Military Mounted Police
Awards: Service Medals/Honour Awards
1914 /15 Star, British War and Victory medals
Military Medal
Cemetery/Memorial: Name/Reference/Country
BAGNEUX BRITISH CEMETERY, GEZAINCOURT
III. C. 16.
France
Headstone Inscription
The souls of the righteous are in the hands of God
UK & Other Memorials
Hitchin Town Memorial, Town Hall Memorial, Hitchin, St Mary's Church Roll of Honour (Book), Hitchin, Standon War Memorial, St Mary’s Church Memorial, Standon, Puckeridge Village Memorial
Pre War
Walter was born in Standon in 1885 and baptised at St Mary’s Church on 9th August that year. He was the son of Mr George and Mrs Ellen Pepper of Standon, Ware, Herts. and married to Bertha M Pepper their home was at 39, Periwinkle Lane, Hitchin. His parents were Mr and Mrs G. Pepper.
His parents ran the Red Lion pub in Standon from about 1890, although George must have had a second income as through the various records he is sometimes referred to as an Innkeeper or Beer Retailer, at other times as a Labourer or Roadman. Walter was one of nine children and was the eldest boy. They were obviously a very patriotic family, as when another boy, Charles, was born in 1887 his middle name was Jubilee – reflecting the 50 years that Queen Victoria had been on the throne.
He was a resident in Hitchin and had been a police constable in Hitchin for five years, having come from the Watford Division, before joining the army. He had served for three years as a regular soldier and had been for seven and a half years on the reserve.
He had married Bertha Budd in 1910 and by the time he was sent to France the couple already had three children, Percy, Violet and Irene another child, Marjorie, was to arrive in 1916.
Wartime Service
As a reservist he was mobilised at Stratford on the 5th August 1914, the day after war had been declared, because of his experience he did not need the long period of training that many men required and he was in France by 11th September 1914.
On the 6th May 1917 he was struck on the hand by a piece of shrapnel and this was the second time that he had been wounded.
He transferred to the Corps of Military Police Mounted Branch with the Number P/ 13932 in November 1917 - he had been in the East Surrey Regiment No. L/8220. He was was an Acting Lance Corporal, No. P/13932.
He served at Arras and on the Somme where he was wounded yet again.
He was awarded the Military Medal for conspicuous bravery and devotion to duty in the field at Passchendaele Ridge whilst acting as a Company stretcher bearer.
The following article was found in the Herts & Essex Observer dated 27th July 1918:
“Death of Corporal Walter Pepper. Corporal Walter Pepper, of the M.M. Police, the eldest son of Mr and Mrs George Pepper, of the Red Lion Inn, Standon, was killed by a bomb on June 29th. His wife and four children reside at Hitchin, where he was a police constable for five years prior to the war. She received the sad news from a chaplain, who wrote: “I read the service over his body in the village where he was hit, and we then took the body to a cemetery several miles away at a casualty clearing station, a place called Gezaincourt, near Doullens, and buried him there. Please accept my very sincere sympathy in your loss.”
Mrs W. Pepper has had the news of her husband’s death confirmed by a telegram from his regimental depot at Aldershot. Corporal Pepper, who had previously served three years in the Regulars and seven and a half years in the Reserve, joined up on August 5th, 1914, and went to France a month afterwards. He belonged to the East Surrey Regiment and was transferred to the Military Mounted Police in November 1917. He was a brave soldier and distinguished himself by winning the Military Medal for conspicuous gallantry at the Passchendaele Ridge. On the day of his death he wrote a letter to his wife acknowledging the receipt of a birthday parcel, his 33rd birthday having occurred three days previously."
The above article also confirmed that Walter was wounded. This, combined with the fact that he had been a police constable before the war, probably led to him being transferred to the Military Mounted Police, where they were desperately short of the right calibre of men for that role, and it perhaps didn’t need the highest standard of fitness. The Military Police, although probably viewed with mixed feelings by the ordinary ‘Tommy’, played an important role in several areas, apart from the normal policing. They controlled the movement of men and material in the congested environment of the Western Front, helped re-locate men who had become detached from their units, guarded strategically important areas such as ports, railways and the rear troop concentrations, took control of the ‘walking wounded’, as well as prisoners of war. The caps they wore with a crimson cloth cover gave them the name ‘Redcaps’ and sometimes made them an easy target.
He was killed by a bomb behind the lines at Doullens in France on 29th June 1918 at the age of 33 years and is buried in Gezaincourt which is a village at the southwest end of Doullens and was the site of various Casualty Clearing Stations. His grave is in Plot 3, Row C, Grave 16 in the Bagneux British Cemetery.
Additional Information
A private inscription on the headstone reads "The souls of the righteous are in the hands of God".
Acknowledgments
Jonty Wild
Di Vanderson
