Name
Albert Frank (Francis) Knapp
1887
Conflict
First World War
Date of Death / Age
30/09/1916
Rank, Service Number & Service Details
Private
G/15380
The Queen's (Royal West Surrey Regiment)
10th Bn.
Awards: Service Medals/Honour Awards
British War and Victory medals
Cemetery/Memorial: Name/Reference/Country
BANCOURT BRITISH CEMETERY
IX. C. 17.
France
Headstone Inscription
None
UK & Other Memorials
Harmer Green & Digswell Memorial, Harmer Green, St John's Church Memorial Plaque, Digswell
Pre War
Albert Frank (Francis) Knapp was born in 1887 in Coombe, Hampshire, the son of Albert and Jeanette Knapp.
On the 1891 Census, the family were living at Cannon Dell, West Tisted, Hants where his father was a gamekeeper. They had joined his grandparents at Highclere, Hants by the 1901 Census. His grandfather was an Assistant Overseer and Rate Collector and his father was gamekeeper (presumably on the Highclere estate). [He is identified as Francis on the census, rather than Albert or Frank.]
He married Annie Hoare on 28 February 1911 in Cobham, Surrey. On the 1911 Census, the newly married couple are living at the Keeper's Cottage at Painshill, Cobham, Surrey, where he was working as a Gamekeeper on the Estate. Later the same year they had a son Albert James and another son Walter born in 1913.
[Sadly both boys died within days of each other in May 1918.]
Wartime Service
He enlisted in Walton, Surrey on 3 December 1915 and served with the 10th Battalion, Queens Own (Royal West Kent) Regiment in France from 5 September 1916.
He was originally listed as missing in the field but was later identified as being killed in action during the Battle of the Somme, with the date assumed to be 30 September 1916.
Additional Information
His widow, Annie, received a war gratuity of £5 and pay owing of £1 18s, She also received a pension of £1 2s 11d a week from 28 May 1917, however this was reduced to 13s 9d a week on the death of her sons. Albert's parents were living in Digswell in 1911, where his father was working as a gamekeeper.
Acknowledgments
Brenda Palmer
Jonty Wild, www.ourwelwyngardencity.org.uk
