Lest We Forget, part 5: The Fallen: The People Behind the Names

Part 5 of 13 of Lest We Forget, a history of remembrance in Harpenden and St Albans. Read the whole illustrated book.

Behind every name on a memorial is a person whose life was ordinary until it wasn't. The Harpenden Local History Society's research, led by Mary Skinner, has recorded where many of Harpenden's men were born, worked and died. The St Albans histories do the same for the city. A selection of their stories follows.

Harpenden: two sets of brothers

The Harpenden memorial includes several pairs of brothers, among them Arthur and Sydney Edwards and Arthur and Charles Newton. Some families lost more than one son. The stories of two show what that meant.

The Hill brothers. Arthur James Hill and his younger brother George William Hill grew up near the Great Northern railway station. Arthur was a horseman on a farm before the war, like his father. He joined the 1/5th Battalion of the Bedfordshire Regiment, became a sergeant, and was killed in action in Palestine on 2 November 1917, aged 29. He is buried in Gaza War Cemetery. George, who worked as a domestic gardener, joined the Hampshire Regiment and died of pneumonia in Salonika on 8 October 1918, aged 26, five weeks before the Armistice.

The Lydekker brothers. Cyril and Gerard Lydekker were born at Harpenden Lodge, the sons of Richard Lydekker, a naturalist and Fellow of the Royal Society. Their parents died within months of each other in 1915, and that same year Cyril, a lieutenant in the Bedfordshire Regiment, was killed in action at Suvla Bay, Gallipoli, on 15 August. His brother Gerard, a lieutenant and quartermaster, died of illness at Alexandria on 14 June 1917. A photograph survives of the two brothers wearing black armbands for their parents. Lydekker Park in Harpenden is dedicated to them, and both have memorials in St Nicholas Church.

St Nicholas Church, Harpenden, which holds individual memorials including those to Cyril and Gerard Lydekker and John Walthew.
Photo: Hassocks5489, CC0.

Harpenden: other lives

• A grocer's assistant from Grove Cottages, in Rothamsted, who was the youngest son in his family and worked for Simons the grocer on the High Street.
• A miniature painter who lived on Rothamsted Avenue and later Station Road.
• A postman who also worked as an attendant at Hill End Hospital.
• Corporal Walter Jennings of the Royal Field Artillery, born in Harpenden, who died in Stamford Hospital on 1 December 1918, more than three weeks after the Armistice.
• 2nd Lieutenant John Walthew of the Royal Flying Corps, who died aged 19 while flying over the enemy lines on 19 September 1917.
• Trooper Cecil Longland, who died at Harpenden in 1901 of enteric fever caught on the voyage home from the Boer War, a reminder that Harpenden's list of war dead did not begin in 1914.

The memorial cross does not list everyone. St Nicholas Church records 106 names from the First World War, eight of whom are missing from the town memorial, and the High Street Methodist Church holds its own tablets.

St Albans: brothers, balloons and Italy

The St Albans memorial lists more than 630 names. A few have been researched in detail.

• Frederick and Joseph Waters. Corporal Frederick William Waters of the 1st Hertfordshire Regiment, who held the Military Medal, is believed to have been killed at Passchendaele. His brother, Gunner Joseph Crawley Waters of the Royal Field Artillery, died in hospital in Egypt of wounds received at Romani.
• Lieutenant Christopher Leckonby Phipps of the Royal Garrison Artillery, attached to the Royal Air Force, was killed in a parachute descent from an observation balloon that had been attacked by the enemy.
• Sergeant George Major, Military Medal, 2nd Border Regiment, was mentioned in despatches and killed in action in Italy.
• Lance Corporal John Rainsden of the 1st Bedfordshire Regiment was killed in action, as was his brother Alfred.
• Lieutenant Richard Harvey Boys, 2nd Battalion Bedfordshire Regiment, whose mother lived at 95 St Peter's Street, is recorded on the St Albans memorial and in the Tabernacle Church.

One street lost 15 men. Kings Road, just outside the Abbey parish, suffered among the highest casualty counts of any city-centre street, and residents later campaigned for a memorial, as described later in this history.

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All 13 parts

1. Introduction: Why We Remember
2. August 1914: Two Towns Go to War
3. Harpenden in the Great War: Camp, Hospital and Home Front
4. St Albans in the Great War: A Garrison Town
5. The Fallen: The People Behind the Names (you are here)
6. Building Memory: The Memorials of 1920 and 1921
7. The Street Memorials of the Abbey Parish
8. Private Edward Warner VC: The Straw Hat Maker from Cannon Street
9. Between the Wars: Learning the Ritual
10. 1939 to 1945: Harpenden at War
11. 1939 to 1945: St Albans at War
12. Adding the Second World War Names
13. Remembrance Today: Services and Walks