Name
Stanley Beale Camp
23/09/1896
Conflict
First World War
Date of Death / Age
18/05/1915
18
Rank, Service Number & Service Details
Private
14076
Bedfordshire Regiment
2nd Bn.
Awards: Service Medals/Honour Awards
1914 /15 Star, British War and Victory medals
Cemetery/Memorial: Name/Reference/Country
LE TOURET MEMORIAL
Panel 10 and 11.
France
Headstone Inscription
N/A
UK & Other Memorials
Ashwell Village Memorial, St John the Baptist Church Memorial, Aldenham, St John the Baptist Church Roll of Honour, Aldenham, Plaque on private House, Landor Cottages, 4 Back Lane, Letchmore Heath*1, Letchmore Heath Village Memorial
Pre War
Stanley Beale Camp was born on 23 September 1896, in Letchworth Heath, Aldenham, Herts, son of Edward and Martha Camp (nee Beale). His parents had married on 26 June 1890 at St Martin’s Church, Kentish Town, Camden, London, although on the 1891 Census they were listed separately, with his mother as a cook for the Huggins family in Hampstead and his father working as a railway labourer living at 72 Quaker Street Buildings in Christchurch, Spitalfields, London.
By the 1901 Census the family were living at 4, Lander Cottages, Letchmore Heath, Herts. Stanley was then aged 4 and he had two older sisters Emily and Phyllis and older brother Edward (Ted). His father was working as a general labourer. His mother Martha died in 1906 and was buried on 8 December 1906 in the graveyard of St John the Baptist Church, Aldenham, Herts. Stanley and his older brother Edward (Ted) then went to live with his maternal uncle Isaac Beale, his wife Annie, and their two children, in Station Road, Ashwell, Herts. He was baptised on 26 March 1909, at the age of 12, along with brother Edward, then 14, at St Mary's Church, Ashwell. They remained living with their uncle and aunt and on the 1911 Census were recorded living with them in Station Road, Ashwell, at which time Stanley was working as a stable lad in a brewery.
His widowed father remarried to Florence Hawes on 12 February 1911 at St Mary's Church, Watford, and they were living in Letchmore Heath on the 1911 and 1921 Censuses. Florence died 1932 in Letchmore Heath aged 51 and his father died on 21 November 1945 in Letchmore Heath aged 85.
Wartime Service
Stanley enlisted at Watford, Herts, in August 1914 and joined the Bedfordshire Regiment with service number 14076, serving with the 2nd Battalion in France from 1 April 1915.
He was killed in action on 18 May 1915, aged 18 years, during the Battle of Festubert whilst trying to capture enemy trenches. He has no known grave and is commemorated on the Le Touret Memorial to the Missing, France. Panel 10 & 11.
Additional Information
His father received a war gratuity of £3 and pay owing £4 7s 3d. No pension records have been found.
Brother to Private 55043 Edward (Ted) Camp of the Manchester Regiment who died on 9 October 1918, from wounds received in action.
*1 There is a plaque above the front door of his old house, Lander Cottages, Back Lane, Letchmore Heath, which reads “Lest we forget, STANLEY BEALE CAMP and TED CAMP LEFT THIS HOUSE TO FIGHT FOR THEIR KING & COUNTRY ON AUG 24 1914 & NOV 15TH 1915, THEY FELL IN ACTION IN FRANCE, STANLEY MAY 18TH 1915 AGED 18 YEARS, TED-OCT 9TH1918 AGED 24 YEARS"
Acknowledgments
Stuart Osborne, Brenda Palmer
Adrian Pitts, Paul Johnson, www.ashwellmuseum.org.uk
