Name
Harry Cecil Childs
Conflict
First World War
Date of Death / Age
05/04/1918
26
Rank, Service Number & Service Details
Sergeant
235235
Lincolnshire Regiment
8th Bn.
Awards: Service Medals/Honour Awards
British War and Victory medals
Cemetery/Memorial: Name/Reference/Country
ARRAS MEMORIAL
Ref. Bay 3 & 4
France
Headstone Inscription
Not Researched
UK & Other Memorials
North Mymms War Memorial, St Mary's Church Roll of Honour, North Mymms, North Mymms Memorial Hall Memorial, Welham Green, Not listed on the Hertfordshire Regimental Memorial, All Saints Church, Hertford
Pre War
We find Harry on the 1911 census living with Mother Emily and Grandmother Martha at St. Paul’s Cottages Welham Green. There were no other siblings recorded. Harry was a Gardener and the North Mymms Postman.
He wrote home on the 23rd of December 1916 thanking the volunteers who were looking after the serving soldiers’ allotments and gardens.
He married wife Maud Blanche on 5th February 1914 in North Mymms Church and had one son, Harry Alfred who was born 6th November 1914, a baby daughter Emily who died during the war, aged 2 years and a daughter Hope, born early in 1918, so named as she was born during the time her father was listed as missing.
Wartime Service
He enlisted in mid-1916 at St. Albans and went into the 3rd Bn. 1st Herts Regiment as Private 9122, and was in training at Tring in September of that year.
He went to France in January 1917 and was buried by a shell in July 1917.
Harry was made Corporal after 6 months active service and promoted to Serjeant and transferred to the Lincolnshire Regiment a month or so before his death.
He was posted as missing in action on the 5th April and was later confirmed killed in action while leading his men in an attack at Gommecourt where his Regiment lost 25 Killed, 63 missing 108 wounded.
Additional Information
After the war Blanche and children, Harry and Hope moved to no 11 Barfolds when they were first built in the 1920s
Acknowledgments
Mike Allen, Jonty Wild
