Name
Alfred Human
1877
Conflict
First World War
Date of Death / Age
23/12/1916
39
Rank, Service Number & Service Details
Private
19147
Grenadier Guards
1st Bn.
Awards: Service Medals/Honour Awards
1914 /15 Star, British War and Victory medals
Cemetery/Memorial: Name/Reference/Country
THIEPVAL MEMORIAL
Pier and Face 8 D.
France
Headstone Inscription
N/A
UK & Other Memorials
Knebworth Village Memorial, Knebworth (Old)
Pre War
Alfred was born in 1877 in Codicote, Herts, the son of James and Elizabeth Human (nee Grant) and was baptised at St Giles Church, Codicote on 30 September 1977. He was one of five children.
On the 1881 Census the family were living in the nearby village of Knebworth where his father was working as a coachman. By 1901 Alfred, then 24, had left the family home and was working as a servant at Weston Park, Weston under Lizard, Staffordshire, where he was Under Butler. Meanwhile his parents and sisters Emily and Lilian were living at The Stables at 15 Kensington Palace Gardens where his father was working as a coachman. His father died in 1902 and in 1911 his mother was living with her granddaughter Dorothy Human at 4 Pembroke Square, Kensington, London where she took in boarders and three were listed on the census as vicar, schoolmaster and chemist. She also had a housemaid servant to assist her. At the same time, Alfred was working as a servant for Major William Hussey, his wife and daughter, at 2 Hereford Gardens, South Kensington, London, where 18 servants were employed. He was living there at the time of enlistment.
Wartime Service
He enlisted in Marylebone and joined the Grenadier Guards as a Guardsman, serving with the 1st Battalion in France from 16 March 1915.
Alfred was killed in action on 23 December 1916 when the 1st Battalion relieved the 4th Battalion in trenches near to Bouleaux Wood, Bronfay, Somme, France. He was reported as missing in action and has no known grave. His name is commemorated on the Thiepval Memorial, France.
Additional Information
His mother received a war gratuity of £10 and his pay owing of £12 3s 4d was divided equally between his mother, sister Lilian and sister in law, Mrs Lilian Human, for his nieces. (N.B. His older brother James Henry Human served with the South African Colonial Corps in the Boer War and was a 40 year army pensioner in 1911. He died in Hampshire, England in 1916 shortly before Alfred). Pension cards exist with his mother as dependant but do not show any amount awarded. She died in 1934 in Chelsea, London.
On the CWGC website, Alfred's regimental number is listed as 19144, however their own grave registration records record the number as 19147, which is also the number on his Medal Index Card, Register of Soldiers' Effects, Pension Cards and Soldiers Who Died in The Great War records. This anomaly has been reported to CWGC.
Acknowledgments
Brenda Palmer
Paul Johnson
