Name
Lawrence Shadbolt
1883
Conflict
First World War
Date of Death / Age
03/05/1917
34
Rank, Service Number & Service Details
Private
33049
Essex Regiment
2nd Bn.
Awards: Service Medals/Honour Awards
British War and Victory medals
Cemetery/Memorial: Name/Reference/Country
ARRAS MEMORIAL
Bay 7
France
Headstone Inscription
N/A
UK & Other Memorials
Ayot St Lawrence Memorial
Pre War
Lawrence Shadbolt was born in 1883 at Ayot St Lawrence, Herts, the son of Charles & Emma Shadbolt. On the 1891 Census the family were living at Ayot St Lawrence where his father was a shepherd.
By 1901 his mother had died and he was living with his widowed father and siblings near Ivory's farm at Ayot St Lawrence and Lawrence was working as a Stockman (Cattle) on a farm. He married Emily Martin in 1909 and on the 1911 Census he was living with his wife and baby son Frederick (born 7 February 1911) at Abbots Hay, Ayot St Lawrence, Herts and working as a Domestic Gardener.
Wartime Service
He enlisted in Welwyn and initially served with the Bedfordshire Regiment under reg. no. 29905, later transferring to the Essex Regiment.
He was killed in action on 3 May 1917, a particularly grim day in the Battle of Arras, when the casualties of over 6,000 officers and men were the heaviest of the whole battle. Few bodies were recoverable from No Man's Land and most were eventually buried by shell fire. Lawrence Shadbolt was one of the missing whose name is commemorated on the Arras memorial in France.
Additional Information
War gratuity of £3 granted to wife Emily, she also received a pension of 18s 9d a week from 14 January 1918. His brother Sidney Alban Shadbolt served in the Royal Field Artillery but survived the war.
Acknowledgments
Brenda Palmer
