Name
Alfred Carter
Conflict
First World War
Date of Death / Age
Rank, Service Number & Service Details
Awards: Service Medals/Honour Awards
Cemetery/Memorial: Name/Reference/Country
Headstone Inscription
Not Researched
UK & Other Memorials
Biography
A search of the parish and census records does not identify any obvious men. However, a report about William Edward Carter (another survivor) in the North Herts Mail reveals that Alfred was his brother, and also identifies another brother, Charles. This enabled their parents to be identified as Charles and Eliza Carter. Charles (senior) had been the village policeman and then the school attendance officer. Baptism and census records confirm that they had thirteen children, but by 1911 three had died. Baptism, school and census records only reveal eleven names, Elizabeth A (b c1871), Henry A (b c1872), George (b c1874), Alice E (b c1877, d 1897), Ellen L (b c1879), Ernest F (b c1880), Annie Priscilla (b c1883), Walter Edward (b c1885), Daisy (b c1886), Florence Rachel (b 1886) and Esther Kate (b 1888) and then Alfred and Charles (b c1869) were identified from the newspaper. Alfred, Charles, Ernest and Walter all served and survived.
The 1901 census shows that the family home was Burge End House, now known as Burge End Farmhouse. Alfred’s father died on May 18th 1914 and his sister, Florence Rachel, married William Thomas Hill on September 16th 1914. William was later killed in the war and appears on the Village War Memorial. It is presumed that the family continued to live in the same house, as the Parish Magazine of January 1916 records that Frederick Brooks (another soldier) married Annie Priscilla Carter in 1915, and in 1918 his home address was given as Burge End House.
The Hertfordshire Express of November 11th 1914 lists Alfred as serving in the Royal Marine Light Infantry and in the Parish Magazine of September 1915 as enlisting during 1914, but after July, and serving in the Royal Marine Transport. The North Herts Mail of November 19th 1914 reported that he had been wounded on October 30th. That would have been twenty days after his brother Walter was wounded.
The North Herts Mail of February 4th 1915 confirms his Regiment and that he had been in Antwerp when a small contingent of the British Army had supported the Belgian Army in the defence of that key city. Antwerp fell, but Alfred had managed to get away with some of the Belgian Army. He had been back to Pirton, probably recovering from his wound, but at the time of the report was back with his Company.
Acknowledgments
Text from the book ‘The Pride of Pirton’ by Jonty Wild, Tony French & Chris Ryan used with author's permission
