Name
Samuel Jenkins
Conflict
First World War
Date of Death / Age
30/11/1917
Rank, Service Number & Service Details
Private
16723
Essex Regiment
1st Bn.
Awards: Service Medals/Honour Awards
Cemetery/Memorial: Name/Reference/Country
CAMBRAI MEMORIAL, LOUVERVAL
Panel 7 and 8.
France
Headstone Inscription
Not Researched
UK & Other Memorials
High Wych Village Memorial, Not on the Sawbridgeworth memorials
Pre War
Samuel was born at Brook Lane, Sawbridgeworth in March 1886, and was baptised at Great St. Mary’s in June that year. However, by 1901, the family had moved to High Wych and Samuel was working as a ‘Cattle & Milkman on Farm’.
In the 1911 census he was a ‘Nursery Labourer’.
Wartime Service
Samuel was a ‘Kitchener’ volunteer and enlisted at Stratford in London in 1914.
He served with the 1st Battalion Essex Regiment. This Battalion was at Gallipoli, then Egypt, before arriving in France via Marseilles in March 1916, in time to take part in the Somme offensive.
In November 1917, the 1st Essex were taking part in the Battle of Cambrai, the first major use of the Tank in warfare and a harbinger of things to come. On 30 November 1917, Samuel Jenkins was reported as killed in action.
He has no known grave, but is commemorated on the Cambrai Memorial in France. He was aged 31.
Acknowledgments
Douglas Coe
