Name
Alfred Wesley Sharman
Conflict
First World War
Date of Death / Age
24/11/1917
32
Rank, Service Number & Service Details
Gunner
105621
Royal Garrison Artillery
301st Siege Battery
Awards: Service Medals/Honour Awards
British War and Victory medals
Cemetery/Memorial: Name/Reference/Country
NOREUIL AUSTRALIAN CEMETERY
Row C, Grave 1.
France
Headstone Inscription
Not Researched
UK & Other Memorials
Watford Borough Roll of Honour,
Rickmansworth Urban District Memorial,
St Mary’s Church Roll of Honour, Rickmansworth
Pre War
Son of Wesley Alfred and the late Emily (nee HUNT) SHARMAN; husband of Lilian Mary/May DEAN (formerly SHARMAN, nee CRONK) of Rickmansworth.
His parents married 1884 in the Windsor, Berks, district. Emily died 1900 aged 38; Wesley died 1938 aged 77; both in the Windsor district.
Alfred was born 9 August 1885 in Windsor, where Wesley Sharman was a baker, and attended first Windsor Infants’ School; then the Royal Free Secondary School, Windsor, from 4 September 1893 to 30 September 1898. He married 7 March 1915 at Watford Registry Office; they had one child. He resided in Rickmansworth. Lilian remarried 23 November 1919 at St Jude’s, Swansea, to Arthur George Edward DEAN, and died 1966 in the Swansea district aged 74.
On the 1891 Census, aged 5 he lived in Clewer, Berks, with his parents and one sibling.
On the 1901 Census, a baker’s lad aged 15, he still lived in Clewer, with his widowed father and five siblings.
His father employed a housekeeper and general servant. Wesley Sharman remarried in 1902.
In 1911 Alfred was 26 and living at 4 Wensum Cottages, Rickmansworth, as a boarder with Frederick Hutchings (a house painter) and his family, and working as a pastry cook. He married Lilian May Cronk on 7/3/1915 at Watford Registry Office. She had formerly lived at Rosebank Cottages, High Street, Rickmansworth. They had 1 son, Raymond who was born in 1916.
Wartime Service
Record of Service Papers for Alfred Sharman show that he was called up July 1916 and was living at 2 Wensum Cottages, High Street, Rickmansworth at the time. He was 31 years old, a pastry cook and confectioner.
He was initially a Private, later becoming a Gunner.
He entered France in April 1917 and killed in action. His grave has the inscription “At Rest”.
Additional Information
There is a brief article about Alfred in the West Herts and Watford Observer dated 29 December 1917; plus an In Memoriam in the issue dated 23 November 1918.
His soldier’s effects of £8 10s 11d and a war gratuity of £5 were left to his widow, Lilian May, who was his sole legatee.
Our Watford History says that Lillian married Arthur Dean in November 1919 in Swansea and died in Swansea in 1966. At some point she lived at 74 Ebury Road, Rickmansworth.
Acknowledgments
Pat Hamilton
Sue Carter (Research) and Watford Museum (ROH on line via www.ourwatfordhistory.org.uk), Malcolm Lennox
