Name
Oliver Travers (MC)
1 Apr 1876
Conflict
First World War
Date of Death / Age
29/10/1917
40
Rank, Service Number & Service Details
Captain
Canadian Infantry
49th Bn. (Edmonton) Alberta Regiment
Awards: Service Medals/Honour Awards
1914 /15 Star, British War and Victory medals
Military Cross
Cemetery/Memorial: Name/Reference/Country
BRANDHOEK NEW MILITARY CEMETERY
I. M. 10.
Belgium
Headstone Inscription
FAR FROM HOME AND LOVED ONES HE GAVE HIS LIFE FOR FREEDOM
UK & Other Memorials
Not on the Abbots Langley memorial, Not on the St Albans Memorials, Not on the Bedmond memorials
Biography
Oliver Travers was not included in any local records, however his obituary was discovered in the 17th November 1917 edition of the Hertfordshire Advertiser, which records him as formerly of Bedmond.
Oliver was born on 1 Apr 1876 in Bedmond, Herts, the third son of John Travers and Susan (nee Gray). At the time of the 1881 Census the family were living at Notley Cottage, Bedmond Road, Bedmond. John Travers was employed as a Chronometer Finisher by Thomas Mercer of St Albans. At the time of the 1891 Census the family had moved to Islington, London where Oliver was employed as a Booksellers assistant.
Oliver migrated to Canada, arriving in Halifax, Nova Scotia on 22 Mar 1894 and headed for Alberta. On the Canadian Census of 1901 Oliver is recorded in Wetaskiwin, Alberta as a Horse Dealer. On the strength of his service in South Africa with 1st Canadian Mounted Rifles from 1 Jan 1900 to 14 Jan 1901, he applied for a Land grant which he received again in Wetaskiwin but relinquished the Land as being brush and scrub unfit for farming in 1902. Oliver married Anna Dumont Anderson in Grouard, near Lesser Slave Lake, Alberta on 15 May 1902. By the Canadian Census of 1906 they had two sons, Sidney born in1904 and John Oliver born in 1905. By the 1911 Canadian Census they had a further 3 sons Percy, Oliver and Richard born in 1907, 1909, 1910 respectively followed by Charles, a fourth son in 1914.
Oliver attested on 8 May 1915, he was living as a Rancher at Grouard, High Prairie, a remote hamlet 200 miles north-west of Edmonton in Alberta Province. He travelled to Edmonton and joined up with the 49th Battalion (Edmonton) Alberta Regiment, a Canadian Infantry unit, being commissioned as Lieutenant. Oliver was appointed Transport Officer on 8 May 1915 and his battalion sailed on 4 Jun 1915 from Montreal arriving in Plymouth on 12 Jun 1915 (a return to the UK for 60% of the Unit). After further training in the Shorncliffe area the 49th Alberta arrived in Boulogne, France on 9 Oct 1915 as part of the newly form 3rd Canadian division and fought in major engagements at Ypres, Somme, and Vimy Ridge between 1915 and 1917. Oliver had a slight wound to his leg in Nov 1915. The 49th were transferred to Ypres and the Canadians attacked along the Bellevue Spur on the opening day of the Second Battle of Passchendaele on 26th October 1917. The 49th was brought into the Line on 28th October, and was immediately bombarded and also bombed from the air. On the night of the 29th October a carrying party of 200 men brought up rations and water to those in the Front Line, and Oliver Travers was killed near Waterloo Farm leading this work.
The next day the battalion attacked the German Front and Support Line at 5.40am and was met by stiff resistance, and suffered heavy casualties from machine guns and shell fire. When the 49th Battalion was relieved it had suffered 343 dead and wounded from the 591 men that had started out.
Oliver Travers was buried at the Brandhoek New Military Cemetery No 3 near Vlamertinghe, to the west of Ypres in Belgium. He was posthumously awarded the Military Cross on 1 Jan 1918 (London Gazette 30450). He was not commemorated on any of the local War Memorials although His name is inscribed on his mother’s gravestone in Ramsgate Town Cemetery, Kent.
Acknowledgments
Neil Cooper
Gareth Hughes
