Name
Henry John Frederick Randall
Conflict
First World War
Date of Death / Age
23/11/1918
30
Rank, Service Number & Service Details
Private
510010
Labour Corps
Awards: Service Medals/Honour Awards
1914 /15 Star, British War and Victory medals
Cemetery/Memorial: Name/Reference/Country
HARLOW (ST. MARY) CHURCHYARD
United Kingdom
Headstone Inscription
Not Researched
UK & Other Memorials
Not on the Sawbridgeworth memorials, Not on the Hertfordshire Yeomanry Memorial, St Albans Catherdral, St Albans Old Harlow Memorial Cross, Harlow, Essex
Pre War
Henry’s parents were John Henry Randall, born in c1837 and Elizabeth Cave, born in 1846 in West Haddon, Northamptonshire and baptised on 31st May 18462. Henry John Frederick Randall was born in Lambeth in 1888 and was baptised at Kennington in September that year. It appears that he was known as Henry John Randall throughout his life.
The 1901 census records Henry as living at 31 Grantham Road, Lambeth, with his widowed mother Elizabeth and siblings Charles and Harriet as well as a domestic servant Ellen Smith. The 1911 census shows Henry residing at Chalks Farm, Sawbridgeworth, where he was working as a farmer at the age of 22. Henry was residing with his 65-year-old mother, boarder Percy and servant Annie.
Wartime Service
Henry enlisted as a volunteer in the 1st/1st Herts Yeomanry, with the service number 1703 and this was pre-war. He went overseas arriving in Egypt on the 5th November 1914. On 19th January 1915 they joined the Yeomanry Mounted Brigade, which moved to Gallipoli in August 1915 as dismounted troops, was placed under command of 2nd Mounted Division and was retitled as 5th Mounted Brigade. They were there until December 1915 when they withdrew from Gallipoli and returned to Egypt.
Henry later served as a Private, 510010, in the Labour Corps. This usually means that a man was no longer fit for frontline duty due to wounding or illness. As Henry died of pneumonia on 23rd November 1918 aged 30 this is perhaps due to ill health from his time in Gallipoli when so many of the men suffered dysentry etc.
He is buried in St Mary’s Churchyard, Harlow, Essex in the new ground, in the far left-hand corner.
Acknowledgments
Jonty Wild, Remembering those who sacrificed their lives for us - War memorials and war graves in Harlow, Douglas Coe
