Name
Herbert Walker
Conflict
First World War
Date of Death / Age
Rank, Service Number & Service Details
Private
109
Labour Corps
Awards: Service Medals/Honour Awards
Cemetery/Memorial: Name/Reference/Country
Headstone Inscription
Not Researched
UK & Other Memorials
Pirton School Memorial
Biography
Herbert appears on the School War Memorial, confirming that he attended the school. An undated newspaper cutting from the village scrapbook reports him as one of four brothers serving, whose parents had died.
Parish and census records confirm that they were the sons of George and Sarah Walker (née Odell) who both died before the war. The family lived in Bury End, near Great Green. In all it would appear that four brothers served, of whom three survived - refer to Frederick Walker for more family details.
In 1911 he was sharing a house around Great Green with his brother Arthur and sister Gertrude; all were single. Herbert worked as a road-man for Hertfordshire County Council.
He is recorded in the Parish Magazine of September 1915 as enlisting sometime during 1914, but after July, and serving in the transport section.
The North Herts Mail of May 27th 1915 reported that he had written to his sister at ‘Big Green’ Pirton, ‘a shell burst near the transport and killed all the horses in that section (five, we believe), and six of his chums were also killed.’ It also describes that, sometime before this incident, he had been injured by shell and had spent eight weeks suffering from blood poisoning.
His Company, Battalion and Regiment are confirmed as the 1st Battalion, Hertfordshire Regiment, “G” Company by the North Herts Mail of March 2nd 1916. The cutting reports that he had returned to Pirton, having completed his service of twelve-and-a-half years; he had served with the Militia before the war.
Although in the transport section, he was known to have spent a considerable time at the Front and had been shelled ‘on more than one occasion has been in supreme danger though bursting shells’. He had often been very lucky, escaping serious injury, ‘horses he has had charge of have been killed.’ On another occasion, ‘he fell into a hidden ditch, with the horses on top of him, but again escaped injury.’ However, he was not completely unscathed; he did suffer ‘bad feet’ - probably trench foot, which was so bad that he was hospitalised in France for several months. The North Herts Mail of March 2nd 1916 reported that, by that date, he had been in hospital for a month.
By 1918, he was recorded as Private 109, Labour Company (probably Corps), with his home address as in Bury Lane.
Some time after the war Herbert married his brother Arthur’s widow Rose (née Males) and continued to live in Pirton with Arthur and Rose’s son (his nephew Stanley) and their own two sons. Stanley lived in Pirton until the last few years of his life.
Acknowledgments
Text from the book ‘The Pride of Pirton’ by Jonty Wild, Tony French & Chris Ryan used with author's permission
