Name
Samuel Coker
1894
Conflict
First World War
Date of Death / Age
05/03/1915
Rank, Service Number & Service Details
Private
10594
Welsh Regiment
1st Bn.
Awards: Service Medals/Honour Awards
1914 /15 Star, British War and Victory medals
Cemetery/Memorial: Name/Reference/Country
DRANOUTER CHURCHYARD
II. B. 8.
Belgium
Headstone Inscription
No Report
UK & Other Memorials
Not on the Tring memorials, Plaque, Memorial Hall, Pitstone
Pre War
Samuel Coker was born in 1894 in Pitstone, Tring to James T Coker, shepherd, and Sarah (nee Shillingford).
On the 1891 Census the family of parents, James Shillingford (stepson, born 1877), Emma (born 1881), Mary A (straw plaiter, born 1882), Alfred (farm labourer, born 1884), Florence (born 1886), Edith (born 1888) and Richard (born 1890) were living at Pitstone Charity Estate, Ivinghoe Road, Pitstone.
On the 1901 Census the family of parents, Mary A (straw plaiter), Alfred (farm labourer), Edith, Richard, Elizabeth (born 1892), Samuel, Ethel (born 1896), Minnie (born 1897), Francis E (born 1899) and Ethel (granddaughter born 1901) were living at Town Houses, Pitstone.
On the 1911 Census Samuel was a farm labourer and was living at 1, Pitstone Charity Estate with his father, Maud, and Willie (born 1902).
Wartime Service
Samuel enlisted in the Welsh Regiment as Private 10594. His service number seems to have been issued about Mar/Apr 1911 and he may have been serving with 1st Battalion in India at the outbreak of the Great War.
No Service Record was found so the above cannot be confirmed. The 1st Battalion were recalled to UK and landed at Plymouth on 22 Dec 1914, were re-equipped and landed at Le Havre, France on 18 Jan 1915 as part of 84 Brigade, 28 Division and moved to the Ypres Salient. Samuel was wounded and although treated at No 15 Field Ambulance he died on 5 Mar 1915.
Additional Information
War Gratuity of £5 and arrears of £6 10s 8d was paid to his father.
Brother Alfred served as Private 7716 in Bedfordshire Regiment and was killed in action on 9 Oct 1917, and brother Richard served in Welsh Regiment and survived the Great War dying in 1959.
Acknowledgments
Neil Cooper
Jonty Wild
