Name
Cecil Edward Baldry
Conflict
First World War
Date of Death / Age
Rank, Service Number & Service Details
26915
36th Machine Gun Corps
Awards: Service Medals/Honour Awards
Not Yet Researched
Cemetery/Memorial: Name/Reference/Country
Headstone Inscription
Not Researched
UK & Other Memorials
Biography
Cecil Baldry was born in Woolaston, eleven miles west of Shrewsbury in 1896. He was the eldest of four sons born to Edward and Flora Baldry. The couple also had three daughters. In the 1901 and 1911 Census Edward was shown employed as a Gamekeeper in the Wetherby area in Yorkshire. By 1911 Cecil had left the family home, and moved to London.
He attested on 23rd November 1915 at Stepney, and at the time was living at 262 Mile End Road, and was employed as a Pawn Broker’s Assistant.
Cecil’s link to Abbots Langley was through his parents. At the time he enlisted in 1915 he gave his parents as his Next of Kin, and indicated that they were living at Longwood Abbots Langley. Longwood, was a large woodland area, which today is much smaller in size, and is bisected by the M25 Motorway. His father, Edward, was employed as a Gamekeeper at the Wood.
On 3rd December Cecil joined the Yorkshire Regiment at Richmond, and on 16th December 1915 was transferred to the newly formed Machine Gun Corps. He was first recorded in the Abbots Langley Parish Magazine Roll of Honour in January 1916 serving with the Yorkshire Regiment, and was recorded with this unit throughout the War. It is not known why the transfer to other units was not recorded.
He set off for France on 16th May 1916 and remained on the Western Front until 16th July 1917, when he returned to England until 26th March 1918. During this eight month period at home he spent time attached to the London Regiment (around 9th November 1917). The reason for returning to England is unknown, and he returned to France on 27th March 1918.
On 13th April he was wounded by a gun-shot to the head (left temple), and was evacuated to England on the Hospital Ship “Cambria” via a Base Hospital at Boulogne, arriving on 28th April 1918. He was sent to the Ontario Military Hospital at Orpington Kent. Between 14th May and 24th May he went on leave to Leadenham, Lincolnshire. By this time he had been promoted to Lance Corporal and was serving with the 36th Machine Gun Corps, but on 31st May he was posted to the 5th Reserve Battalion based at Grantham, presumably unfit at that point to return to the Front.
On 4th June he received three days “confined to barracks” for being absent from Digging Parade at Belton Park, the Machine Gun Corps Base Camp. On 12th September he was re-posted to the BEF and the next day was back in France, joining his battalion in the field soon afterwards on 25th September 1918. He remained in France and Flanders throughout the rest of the War, and returned to England on 22nd January 1919. Cecil was demobilised on 20th February 1919 to Leadenham, Lincolnshire.
Cecil Baldry survived the War
Acknowledgments
Roger Yapp - www.backtothefront.org
