Name
Walter Dredge
Conflict
First World War
Date of Death / Age
24/09/1918
27
Rank, Service Number & Service Details
Private
255233
Canadian Machine Gun Corps
3rd Bn.
Awards: Service Medals/Honour Awards
Not Yet Researched
Cemetery/Memorial: Name/Reference/Country
WANQUETIN COMMUNAL CEMETERY
II. E. 15.
France
Headstone Inscription
Not Researched
UK & Other Memorials
Bushey Town Memorial
Pre War
Born in Hendon on 29th July 1890, Walter William Dredge was the second of three sons born to Arthur and Emily (née Wright) Dredge. Arthur and Emily were married on 26 Oct 1880 at St Mary’s Church, Kilburn and Arthur was recorded as a dairyman, and his father as a farmer. Walter’s brothers are Arthur James (b. Q4 1885) and Albert Edward Reginald (b. Q3 1894).
By the time of the 1901 Census, the family had moved to Hertfordshire and Arthur (Snr.) had become the beer house keeper at The Crown & Sceptre, Sparrows Herne, Bushey.
As a young man Walter emigrated to Canada, travelling on the SS Carthaginian from Liverpool to Halifax on 23 April 1910. According to his attestation paper when he enlisted, he was a farmer living in Elbow, Saskatchewan and had also served two terms in the Canadian Militia.
Wartime Service
Walter enlisted as Private 255233 with the Canadian Overseas Expeditionary Force on 28th March 1916. His attestation paper incorrectly gives Bushey as his place of birth (perhaps because the family had moved there when he was still young and he viewed Bushey as his place of birth) and gives his next of kin as his father, Arthur Dredge of Heathbourne Road, Bushey Heath. He is unmarried.
He arrived in England on the SS Carpathia on 22nd April 1917 and served in France with the machine gun corps.
He suffered a gunshot wound to the face on 28th October 1917 and was admitted to the 6th General Hospital at Rowen on 10th November 1917. He was discharged from hospital on 24th November 1917 and was killed in action on 24th September 1918.
He is remembered with honour at the Wanquetin Communal Cemetery in France and is commemorated on the Bushey Memorial.
Additional Information
Information provided with the kind permission of Bushey First World War Commemoration Project – Please visit www.busheyworldwarone.org.uk
Acknowledgments
Andrew Palmer
Dianne Payne - www.busheyworldwarone.org.uk, Jonty Wild, www.collectionscanada.gc.ca
