Name
Albert Horace
18 Jan 1893
Conflict
First World War
Date of Death / Age
Rank, Service Number & Service Details
Corporal
0108
Army Veterinary Corps
Shoeing Smith
Awards: Service Medals/Honour Awards
Searched but not found
Cemetery/Memorial: Name/Reference/Country
Headstone Inscription
Not Researched
UK & Other Memorials
St Leonard's Church Lychgate (Survivors), Sandridge
Pre War
Albert was born on 18th January 1893 in Sandridge to Joseph Wicks, Railway Labourer, and Eliza Wicks formerly Welch, who when registering his birth ‘made her mark’.
He was the sixth child and third son born to this couple who had seven daughters as well.
All his siblings Ellen, Joseph, Emma, Elizabeth, Alfred, Bertha, Lily, Hilda, and Winnie.
Albert was christened at St. Leonards Parish Church in Sandridge on 26 March 1893.
In 1901 census Albert was 8 years old, he is not recorded as a scholar yet there was a village school in Sandridge where he was living with his parents and five of his siblings. His father was a labourer on the railway and his older brother Alfred was a Farm labourer.
In 1911, aged eighteen, Albert worked as a ploughman at Marshals wick Farm near Sandridge. The only child still at home with his parents. Family report that he became a blacksmith farrier later, and it was in this capacity that he served during WWI.
He then met and married Grace Myland (1894 – 1960). Grace was born in Atherstone, Warwickshire but grew up in St Albans where her father ran ‘The Goat’ public house.
The marriage took place in St Albans in June 1917 with Albert’s sister Elizabeth ‘Kate’ as witness together with Grace’s father. Grace’s father gave them a house to live in at 3 Dalton Street, St. Albans
Wartime Service
Albert was 24 years old when he married and at that time a corporal in the Shoeing Smith Army Veterinary Corps.
As far as the family know, one of his grandsons was told that he spent the war based near the gas works in St Albans training others to shoe horses and did not himself go to France. The photograph on his profile shows him with corporal’s stripes and a horseshoe on his uniform.
Additional Information
After the war the need for blacksmiths and farriers declined rapidly and he joined The North Met (Metropolitan Electrical Company?) as the leader of a heavy gang digging trenches.
Grace gave birth to two children: Edna May, 1917-1999 and Albert Edward (‘Bert’) 1920-1992.
In 1921 the family were still at 3 Dalton Road, St. Albans, Albert was working as a labourer contracted to Howard Farrow.
In 1939 Albert and his wife and children were living in the same house and he was employed as a Heavy Worker laying electric cables. His son a printer’s compositor and his daughter a dispatch clerk for a seed wholesaler.
His descendants recall that Albert senior was a quiet man and painfully shy. He became a grandfather for the first time in 1941, in all he and Grace would have eight grandchildren, however only a further two grandchildren were born before he died in 1949.
He was knocked off his bicycle coming home from work in December 1949 and died of his injuries on 19th December in Hill End Hospital, St. Albans. He was 56 years old.
He left an estate of £1306 to his widow, Grace and his son, Albert – who at that time was a printer compositor.
Acknowledgments
Sarah Burns
