Name
Martin Henry Farey
1894
Conflict
First World War
Date of Death / Age
05/12/1915
21
Rank, Service Number & Service Details
Private
2211
Hertfordshire Regiment
1st Bn.
Awards: Service Medals/Honour Awards
1914 (Mons) Star, British War and Victory Medals
Cemetery/Memorial: Name/Reference/Country
BETHUNE TOWN CEMETERY
IV. G. 24.
France
Headstone Inscription
LORD THY WILL BE DONE
UK & Other Memorials
Hitchin War Memorial, 4 Co' Hertfordshire Reg' Territorials’ Memorial, Hitchin, St Mary's Church Roll of Honour, Hitchin, Hertfordshire Regimental Memorial, All Saints Church, Hertford, Not on the Preston Memorial
Pre War
Martin Henry Farey was born in 1894 in Preston, Herts, the son of Amos and Mary Farey (nee Isaacson) and the eldest of three sons.
On the 1901 Census the family were living at 70 Bancroft, Hitchin, where his father was working as a labourer on a farm. They remained in Hitchin in 1911 but were listed on the Census as living at at 5 Penn's Yard, St Andrew's Street. Martin was then working as a chemist's errand boy
Wartime Service
Martin Farey's Reg. No. 2211 suggests that he enlisted in 1913 with the Hertfordshire Regiment which was then a Territorial Force battalion. The Battalion received orders to be ready to embark by the 5th November 1914 and and they sailed from Southampton on the 'City of Chester' arriving at Le Havre the following day, then proceeding to the front lines on 11 November. They lost their first casualties at Ypres, eventually taking up positions near Hooge. In May 1915 the Battalion fought in the Battle of Festubert and the Battle of Loos in September.
On 5 December 1915 when the Battalion were near Bethune, they were heavily shelled and, according to the war diary, there were three casualties. Martin was one of those three and died of his wounds the same day. He is buried in Plot 4, Row G, Grave 24 in the Bethune Town Cemetery, France.
Additional Information
A private inscription on the stone reads "Lord Thy will be done".
His mother received a war gratuity of £5 10s and pay owing of £4 10s 9d. No pension appears to have been payable.
Also listed as Beds & Herts Regt no. 2211.
Acknowledgments
Brenda Palmer
www.bedfordregiment.org.uk/Hertsrgt, Adrian Dunne, Philip Wray - www.prestonherts.co.uk/page137.html David C Baines, Jonty Wild,
