Name
Herbert William Tansley
1895
Conflict
First World War
Date of Death / Age
27/09/1918
Rank, Service Number & Service Details
Private
51641
Lincolnshire Regiment
1st Bn.
Awards: Service Medals/Honour Awards
British War and Victory medals
Cemetery/Memorial: Name/Reference/Country
GRAND-SERAUCOURT BRITISH CEMETERY
VII. C. 10.
France
Headstone Inscription
None
UK & Other Memorials
Hitchin Town Memorial, St Mary's Church Roll of Honour, Hitchin, Not on the Ickleford memorials
Pre War
Herbert William Tansley was born in Ickleford, Herts in 1895, the son Fred and Emily Tansley and one of four children.
On the 1901 Census the family were living at 5 Express Yard, Hitchin, where his father was working as a labourer. They had moved to 4 Exchange Yard, Hitchin by 1911 and 15 year old Herbert was working as an Errand Boy.
As a lad he had been a houseboy to Mrs Clemens Usher, then Mrs Waldock in Bucklersbury and later at Foxholes.
He married Ellen E Carter in early 1916 and they had a daughter Dorothy May who was born on 10 July 1916 and prior to enlistment he was employed by J A Pirkis & Son of Sun Street, Hitchin.
Wartime Service
Herbert enlisted in Hitchin and joined the army in November 1915. At first he was in a Bantam Battalion (being under 5ft 3in tall) but was later accepted into the Suffolk Regiment (Reg. No. 23427). He was transferred again to the Lincolnshire Regiment (Reg. No. 51641). this being part of the 62nd Brigade of the 21st Division of V Corps in the 3rd Army.
By May 1917 he was a Signaller with the Bedfordshire Regiment (Reg. No. 31814), was seriously wounded in action and eventually sent to Napsbury Hospital, near St Albans. He was wounded on two occasions, which may account for the changes in regiment.
He was taken prisoner in April/May 1918 and was in a prisoner of war camp at Friedrichsfeld, near Wesel at the time of his death. He died from bronchial catarrh in the great influenza epidemic which was sweeping across Europe at the time.
He was initially buried in Marles Communal Cemetery, in Germany but exhumed after the war and reburied in Grand-Seraucourt British Cemetery, France.
Additional Information
His widow received a war gratuity of £16 10s and pay owing of £17 10s 6d. She also received a pension of £1 0s 5d a week for herself and her child. Her address on pension records was 4 Exchange Place, Hitchin. She later remarried to Francis Bywaters in 1923.
Acknowledgments
Brenda Palmer
Jonty Wild, Adrian Dunne, David C Baines, Brenda Palmer, www.hitchinatwar.org.uk
