Name
Samuel Alfred Ward
Conflict
First World War
Date of Death / Age
17/11/1917
29
Rank, Service Number & Service Details
Lance Serjeant
40497
Lincolnshire Regiment
2nd Bn.
Awards: Service Medals/Honour Awards
Not Yet Researched
Cemetery/Memorial: Name/Reference/Country
TYNE COT MEMORIAL
Panel 35 to 37 and 162 to 162A.
Belgium
Headstone Inscription
Not Researched
UK & Other Memorials
Not on the Sawbridgeworth memorials
Pre War
Samuel was the son of Robert Ward, of Neaton, Watton, Norfolk born in 1888
In the 1911 census he was recorded as a ‘Servant Baker’, and still lived at Watton.
Samuel was a professional soldier, enlisting before the Great War and served in the 2nd Battalion Lincolnshire Regiment. Whilst on leave in July 1916, Samuel married Alice Bilverstone at Swaffam, also in Norfolk.
Wartime Service
At the start of the Great War, Samuel’s Battalion was in Bermuda. It was quickly brought back to Britain via Canada, and on 6 November 1914 landed at Le Havre in France.
Samuel served in many major engagements in 1915 and 1916 and in November 1917 was in the trenches near Ypres. Samuel’s date of death is given as 17 November 1917. The Battalion diary recorded no major action at that time, which implies that Samuel was killed through the daily general attrition.
Samuel Ward has no known grave but is commenorated on both the Tyne Cot. He was aged 29.
Samuel’s link to Sawbridgeworth appears to be that his widow Alice was a servant at Hyde Hall in 1919.
Additional Information
His headstone reads “In loving memory”, as requested by his wife. After his death, his widow, Alice Ward, was recorded living at Hyde Hall Gardens, Sawbridgeworth, Herts.
Acknowledgments
Jonty Wild, Douglas Coe
