Name
Alfred Edmund Matthews
Conflict
First World War
Date of Death / Age
24/07/1917
36
Rank, Service Number & Service Details
Private
106074
Hertfordshire Yeomanry
1st/1st
Awards: Service Medals/Honour Awards
Not Yet Researched
Cemetery/Memorial: Name/Reference/Country
AMARA WAR CEMETERY
IV. D. 3.
Iraq
Headstone Inscription
Not Researched
UK & Other Memorials
Sawbridgeworth Town Memorial, Great St Mary’s Church Memorial, Sawbridgeworth, Hertfordshire Yeomanry Memorial, St Albans Cathedral
Pre War
Alfred was the son of Charles and Alice Amelia Matthews, later of Brooklands, Sayesbury Rd., Sawbridgeworth, Herts. He was born in 1882 at Saffron Walden.
In the 1911 census he was an ‘Assistant Superintendent’ with the Police at Bishop’s Stortford. Prior to this he may have been a travelling salesman for Edgar Carruthers of Bishop’s Stortford, a Drapery Store and used to lodge with Mrs Hart of 26 Bartholomew Road Bishops Stortford and was a special constable there.
Charles, his father, died just before the war.
Wartime Service
Alfred enlisted with his brother Leonard into the Herts Yeomanry in December 1915 and they both served in Mesopotamia. This was a cavalry regiment and was split into squadrons for overseas service.
Alfred served in ‘D’ Squadron, and in 1917 was sent to Mesopotamia (Iraq). Alfred was the first son to die; he died of the effects of heat in Mesopotamia (now known as Iraq) and is buried in Amara War Cemetery, Basra. He was 35 when he died.
Additional Information
Mrs Alice Amelia Matthews had lost her husband shortly before the war began and during the war she lost three of her sons – Ernest, Leonard and Alfred. Her other sons were Bert who signed up was discharged after being declared unfit and William Albert who served and survived.
Acknowledgments
Jonty Wild, David Harvey - Leventhorpe School, Gareth Hughes, Douglas Coe
