Name
Alfred Shepherd
1898
Conflict
First World War
Date of Death / Age
12/08/1916
18
Rank, Service Number & Service Details
Private
5290
Hertfordshire Regiment
1st/1st Bn.
Awards: Service Medals/Honour Awards
British War and Victory medals
Cemetery/Memorial: Name/Reference/Country
ST. QUENTIN CABARET MILITARY CEMETERY
I. A. 28.
Belgium
Headstone Inscription
I WILL LAY ME DOWN IN PEACE AND TAKE MY REST
UK & Other Memorials
St Peter's Church Memorial, Ayot St Peter, St Peter's Church Roll of Honour, Ayot St Peter, 4 Co' Hertfordshire Reg' Territorials’ Memorial, Hitchin, St Mary's Church Roll of Honour (Book), Hitchin, Kimpton Village Memorial, St Peter & St Paul Church, Kimpton, Hertfordshire Regimental Memorial, All Saints Church, Hertford
Pre War
Alfred Shepherd was born in 1898 in Ayot St Peter, Welwyn, Hertfordshire, the illegitimate son of Mary Ann Shepherd.
At the time of the 1901 Census he was living at Ayot Green, Hertfordshire, with his grandparents, William and Martha Shepherd, his mother Mary and siblings, William aged 12 and Gertrude aged 9. His grandfather, aged 74 was working as a bricklayer and his mother, aged 37 was a dressmaker. On the 1911 Census he was living with his mother, uncle Charles and brother William at Kimpton Green, Welwyn, Herts. His sister Gertrude was working as a scullery maid at the All Saints Home, Hawley, Blackwater, Hants. (The home/school was run by the Sisters of Mercy for girls and young children from the slums of London without homes of their own or "exposed to evil influences".)
His sister Gertrude married Herbert William Groom in Hitchin in 1918 and they were living in Church Lane, Hitchin with her mother Mary on the 1939 register.
Wartime Service
Alfred enlisted in Hertford in June 1915 and joined the Hertfordshire Regiment with the reg. no. 5290 and served in 4 Company. He would have been sent to the Front in early 1916.
At the beginning of March the Battalion was at Ebblingham a few miles east of GHQ at St. Omer, and for the next few months took their turn in the trenches relieving other regiments and providing working parties for manual labour duties where necessary, such as repairing trenches and road making for other units situated nearer the front. The Battalion marched to Le-Ecole de Jeune Filles (the Girls' School) at Bethune at the end of July and relieved the 13th Battalion, Royal Sussex Regiment in the Festubert sector on 1 August 1916.
The Regiment's war diary does not suggest any major action for 12 August, although they would often be subjected to shell and sniper fire, but Alfred was killed in action on 12 August 1916 along with Randall John Harwood, who was also from Ayot St Peter and served in the Hertfordshire Regiment. They are both buried in Plot I, Row A, Graves and 28 and 30 in the St. Quentin Cabaret Military Cemetery, Heuvelland, Wes Vlaanderen, Belgium.
Additional Information
His mother received a war gratuity of £4 and pay owing of £3 12s 6d. While living at The Green, Kimpton, Welwyn, Herts., she ordered his headstone inscription: "I WILL LAY ME DOWN IN PEACE AND TAKE MY REST". A pension of 3 shillings a week was awarded but paid to Nominee Gertrude Groom ( his married sister) of 21 Church Lane, Kimpton, Hitchin, Herts. A note on the medical certificate section of the pension card states that his mother was capable of "nothing beyond her housework". N.B. Ancestry military service record for Alfred Shepherd appears to have been mixed with that of Robert Shepherd, who also served with the Hertfordshire Regiment (Reg. No. 5436) and George Sharp also Herts Regiment (No. 4779)
Acknowledgments
Brenda Palmer
David C Baines, Jonty Wild, Brenda Palmer, www.bedfordregiment.org.uk/hertsrgt
