Name
Samuel Draper
1891
Conflict
First World War
Date of Death / Age
20/04/1918
27
Rank, Service Number & Service Details
Private
M2/019467
Army Service Corps
58th Mechanical Transport Company
Awards: Service Medals/Honour Awards
1914 /15 Star, British War and Victory medals
Cemetery/Memorial: Name/Reference/Country
PICQUIGNY BRITISH CEMETERY
B.15
France
Headstone Inscription
BLESSED ARE THE DEAD WHICH DIE IN THE LORD
UK & Other Memorials
Ayot St Peter Memorial, Roll of Honour, St Peter's Church, Ayot St Peter
Pre War
Samuel Draper was born in 1891 in Ayot St Peter, Herts, He was one of five sons of George Draper and his wife Sarah who kept a shop in Ayot Green from 1886 and also ran the smithy next door.
On the 1901 Census the family were living at Ayot Green where his father was a blacksmith but by 1911 he was living at 96 Adelaide Road, West Ealing, London as a boarder and working as an 'Engineers' Learner' in Motor & General Engineering.
Wartime Service
Samuel enlisted in London in October 1914 and served in France with the Army Service Corps from 23 December of that year.
The Hertfordshire Express reports on the 11th of May 1918 that his father has received news that Samuel was killed in action on the 20th of April. "After three years and four months' service, he was wounded on April 20, and died the following day.
"His officer writes:- "Draper had been in my section for nearly two years, and he was one of the best men that I had. I am not saying this merely as a matter of course, but because it is the truth, and my brother officers would bear me out in it. We were bombed on the evening of April 19, and, unfortunately, Draper was wounded. He was taken to hospital, and he passed over the next day. Draper had done extraordinary good work since the recent operations began last month, and for days on end during the commencement of things he was driving a lorry by himself, and with hardly any rest... I shall miss him very much indeed, and he is one of the last men in the Company I would have parted with."
He died of wounds at the 5th Casualty Clearing Station which was stationed near Picquigny to deal with casualties incurred from the German advance on Amiens.
Additional Information
His father, George Draper Esq of Ayot St Peter, Welwyn, Herts, ordered his headstone inscription: "BLESSED ARE THE DEAD WHICH DIE IN THE LORD".
Probate was granted on 9 May 1918 to Sarah Elizabeth Draper with effects of £264 15s. His mother received a war gratuity of £16.
Brother to George Draper (killed in action in October 1916), also named on the Ayot St Peter memorial; William (Farrier) - had been in Salonica for almost three years at the time of Samuel's death and in hospital with malaria in Corfu; David (invalided from the Army owing to malaria, and was in British East Africa at the time if Samuel's death); John - working at a Y.M.C.A. Hut in Berkhamstead as a result of being medically unfit.
Acknowledgments
Jonty Wild, Brenda Palmer, Derry Warners
www.ayotstpeter.com
