Name
Samuel Benjamin Goate
1885
Conflict
First World War
Date of Death / Age
28/06/1918
32
Rank, Service Number & Service Details
Lance Corporal
161614
Royal Engineers
3rd Army H.Q. Signal Company
Awards: Service Medals/Honour Awards
British War and Victory medals
Cemetery/Memorial: Name/Reference/Country
VARENNES MILITARY CEMETERY
III. I. 10.
France
Headstone Inscription
UNTIL THE DAY DAWN
UK & Other Memorials
Barkway Village Memorial, St Mary Magdalene Church Memorial, Barkway
Pre War
Samuel Benjamin Goate was born in 1885 in Ipswich, Suffolk, the son Edward and Sophia Goate and one of nine children.
On the 1891 Census the family were living at Tidings Hill, Halstead, Essex, where his father was working as a lineman in the postal telegraph department. By 1901 they had moved again to 24 St Paul's Road, Colchester, Essex, at which time both Samuel and his father were working for the General Post Office (GPO), his father as a lineman and 15 year old Samuel as a messenger. He was later appointed as Assistant Postman in 1903. In 1911 Samuel was recorded as a boarder living at the Post Office, Barkway with Thomas and Emily Baker and their family, and working as a grocer. Meanwhile his parents remained living in Colchester.
He married Elsie Annie Baker (daughter of Thomas & Emily Baker) in Barkway on 20 September 1911 and was listed as a grocer in the Post Office Home Counties Directory for Barkway for 1912. They had three children, Ernest (1912), Robert (1915) and Peggy (later known as Kathleen) (1916).
His parents were living at 18 Alexandra Rd., Colchester, Essex in 1918.
Wartime Service
He enlisted Hitchin on 22 December 1915 and served with the Royal Engineers from 17 July 1916 having been transferred to the Base Signalling Depot. He was sent to France on and appointed paid Lance Corporal on 28 March 1917.
Samuel was killed in action on 28 June 1918, aged 32, and is buried in Varennes Military Cemetery, France.
Additional Information
His widow received a war gratuity of £9 and pay owing of £2 16s 1d. She also received a pension of £1 9s 7d a week, later rising to £1 18s 6d.
Samuel is also commemorated on his son's headstone in Baldock Cemetery, his inscription reads:
". . . ALSO OF SAMUEL COATE FATHER OF THE ABOVE (ROBERT FREDERICK COATE) KILLED IN ACTION JUNE 28TH 1918 AGED 31 YEARS(*1) WE ASKED LIFE FOR THEM THOU GAVEST LIFE FOR EVER MORE"
Acknowledgments
Brenda Palmer
Paul Johnson, Adrian Pitts
