Name
Levi Brown
1899
Conflict
First World War
Date of Death / Age
28/12/1915
16
Rank, Service Number & Service Details
Private
16747
Bedfordshire Regiment
8th Bn.
Awards: Service Medals/Honour Awards
1914 /15 Star, British War and Victory medals
Cemetery/Memorial: Name/Reference/Country
YPRES (MENIN GATE) MEMORIAL
Panel 31 and 33
Belgium
Headstone Inscription
N/A
UK & Other Memorials
Knebworth Village Memorial, Knebworth (Old), St Martin's Church Memorial, Knebworth (New), St Martin's Church Framed Memorial Knebworth (New), The British Legion -Knebworth & District Branch ROH, St Martin Church, Knebworth (New), St Mary & St Thomas Church Memorial, Knebworth Park, Diocese - Book of Remembrance, St Albans Cathedral, St Albans, Diocese of St Albans - ROH, St Albans Cathedral, St Albans, Not on the Datchworth memorials
Pre War
Levi Brown was born in 1899 in Datchworth, Herts, the son of Levi and Florence Brown (formerly Collins). His mother had been born in Datchworth and his father in Benington, Herts.
On the 1901 Census the family were living at Cattle Gate, Northaw, Herts and his father was working as a cattle man. His mother died in 1905, and on the 1911 Census he was living with his widowed father, who was then working as a builder’s labourer, and younger brothers Herbert and Charles, at Pounds Green Datchworth. He was said to be living at Knebworth prior to enlistment.
Wartime Service
Levi enlisted in Hertford and joined the Bedfordshire Regiment, serving with the 8th Battalion in France from 30 August 1915.
It is likely that Levi falsified his age on enlistment as soldiers needed to be 18 years or over to enlist and could not be sent overseas until the age of 19. Being born in the second quarter of 1899 he would not have met that criteria.
He would have soon seen action at the Battle of Loos in September 1915 and suffered intermittent shelling, rifle and machine gun fire, wet muddy trenches which had to be pumped and drained because of constant rain, and the use of phosgene gas by the Germans on 19 December 1915.
Levi was killed in action on 28 December 1915, aged 16, when the Battalion were at Ypres and the canal bank was shelled with enemy aeroplanes active overhead. He has no known grave and his name is commemorated on the Ypres (Menin Gate) Memorial, Belgium.
Additional Information
His father received a war gratuity of £5 and pay owing of £4 12s 8d. He also received a pension of 5 shillings a week and his address on pension records was recorded variously as Fowler's Yard, Twywell, Thrapston, c/o Mrs Soper at Wilstead and Streatham High Road, Wandsworth. However he appears to have been living in Codicote in 1939 and died in Hertfordshire in 1953 aged 88.
Acknowledgments
Brenda Palmer
Paul Johnson, Pat Bird
