L/8446 Pte Benjamin Gammage, 1st Bn, The Queen's

L/8446 Private Benjamin Gammage of the 1st Battalion, The Queen's (Royal West Surrey) Regiment, died of wounds on 7th October 1914.

Benjamin Gammage certainly had been a career soldier. His number suggests that he joined the Queen's in July 1905 which means that unless he had extended his terms of service (assuming that he had enlisted for 7 years with the Colours and 5 on the Reserve) he was a reservist recalled to the Colours when Britain went to war with Germany. In any event, he was in France by the 12th August and, along with the original BEF, must have had a hard time of it in those initial desperate weeks.

I have been unable to find Benjamin Gammage on either the Commonwealth War Graves Commission website or the War Graves Photographic Project site and so I am unable to identify his last resting place - or a memorial in France or Belgium which carries his name. Soldiers Died in the Great War notes that he was born in Islington, living in Brentwood and enlisted at Guildford.

At the going down of the sun, and in the morning, WE WILL REMEMBER THEM.

Sources:

Ancestry.co.uk (MIC)
Army Ancestry
Army Service Numbers 1881-1918