14617 L/Cpl Samuel Berrisford of the 8th North Staffordshire Regiment was killed in action on 11th September 1915.
Samuel has surviving service papers in WO 363 at the National Archives, and the following information is largely taken from this source. These records can be accessed for free at The National Archives or by going to Ancestry or Findmypast. Click on the links to get to the relevant pages. I have published some on this post.
Samuel enlisted at Lichfield on 29th August 1914 giving his place of birth as Ipstones near Cheadle in Staffordshire. His age is noted as 20 years and four months which suggests that he had been born in April 1894. At the time of his enlistment he was working as a labourer.
Samuel stood five feet six and a half inches tall, had a fresh complexion, grey eyes and brown hair. His religion is noted as Wesleyan. In the "distinctive marks" section of his attestation form is recorded, "oblique scar across knuckle of left thumb" which, if nothing else, suggests that new recruits in Leek, where he was examined, were pretty thoroughly checked over. A small mole on his left shoulder blade is also deemed worthy of note.
Samuel remained at the regimental depot until 28th November 1914 when he was posted to the 11th (Service) Battalion. He was appointed lance-corporal on 22nd January 1915 and would remain in England until 24th August that year. The following day, on arrival in France, he was immediately posted to the 8th (Service) Battalion.
Effects Form 118A dated 18th November 1915 from the War Office in London directs the Officer in Charge of Infantry Records at Lichfield to despatch any article of property belonging to the late L/Cpl Berrisford to Mr John Berrisford of Colestone Common, Ipstones. The following items were duly sent:
photos and letters
1 notebook
2 prayer books, 1 hymn book
1 disc, 2 pencils
1 cap badge, 1 comb
1 whistle, 1 lock of hair
1 handkerchief
Samuel is buried in Le Touret Military Cemetery; grave reference II.A.31. He had been in France for just 18 days.
At the going down of the sun, and in the morning, WE WILL REMEMBER THEM.
Sources:
Ancestry.co.uk (MIC, WO 363)
Army Ancestry
Army Service Numbers 1881-1918
Commonwealth War Graves Commission
The images on this page are Crown Copyright, The National Archives, Kew.
6 comments:
Thankyou for taking the time to remember Sam, we , his family are so very proud of him, the years may pass but his memory lives on while his picture hangs on our wall.
Thank you for taking the time to comment. He must be particularly in your thoughts at this point in time.
Paul
hi Paul, i admit to shedding a few tears on finding the post, it gave us a clearer picture of that time in Sams life and cleared up a query, we don't have the copies from the Archive but now we have the reference numbers we will now request them to add to Sams story, the only surviving photo we have is of him in his uniform before he shipped out, he looks so very young.....he's never far away and we talk about him often, we've never visited his grave but we will, it's the least we owe him..apologises, i could go on and on....was the original post your work Paul?
Hello again. I'm glad I was able to add something of interest for you and the family. Yes, the post was my work and I'll add some links to that post which will enable you to access his records on either findmypast or ancestry as both of these websites have digitised the records. You'll need to pay to actually view these but at least you'll have the option. If you can make it to the National Archives in Kew you'll be able to view these records free of charge there, alternatively many public libraries have subscriptions to either findmypast or ancestry or both.
Best wishes
Paul
Further to my comment above, note too that the Commonwealth War Graves commission has also recently published additional documents on its site relating to graves registration and headstone/memorial schedules. There are four documents for Samuel. Go to cwgc.org and type in "S BERRISFORD" in the search box. His name is the first to appear in the results' page. Click on the link and then, once this opens, scroll down to view the documents.
hi Paul, we will certainly chase up the extra documents and information and thankyou again for all your hard work, it means alot to families like ours, regards, Kay
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