BORN – Oswestry
HOMEFRONT – Place / Occupation / St Oswald’s Church
JOB – Platelayer, Railways
UNIT –119 Brigade Royal Field Artillery
RANK – Gunner 5226
THEATRE – Somme / Mametz Wood. 119 Brigade, Royal Field Artillery. 7-10 July 1916
DIED – KIA 9 July 1916. Aged 27
BURIED – Corbie Communal Cemetery Extension. (CWGC)
Note: No census data can be found for Benjamin Cadman, his story has been mainly compiled from his military records and obituary.
Benjamin Cadman was born in 1889 at Oswestry; he was the son of John and Jane Cadman. His parents, by the time of the war, had moved to live at Meadow View, Pattingham near Wolverhampton. Benjamin seems to have moved to Ellesmere Port and the next record for him is his registration for the Ellesmere Port Branch of the Amalgamated Society of Railway Servants, dated 1912, when he was working as a platelayer on the railways. At Ellesmere Port too, in 1913, he married Jane Ann Mason. She was originally from Oswestry – Beatrice Street – and had been working as a domestic servant for a banker in Hoylake. Their first child, Benjamin Thomas was born at Ellesmere Port in 1914. At some time before the war, Benjamin was working at Ifton Colliery. He most likely worked on the railway rather than as a miner. They lived in Oswestry at 27 Albert Road. A second child, Elizabeth, would be born in Q2 1917 at Forden. However, Benjamin was killed on 9 July so makes it doubtful he was the father. Jane would remarry in 1919.
Benjamin enlisted at Oswestry, probably in 1914, and joining the Royal Field Artillery posted to 119 Brigade, He went over to France on 23 December 1914. He died of wounds on 9 July 1916 . The 119 Brigade was part of the Divisional Artillery for 38 (Welsh) Division which, from 7 July, was engaged in the action at Mametz Wood. They were located to the south west of Fricourt with guns registered on Mametz Wood and the village of Contalmaison. His obituary in BCA states he was wounded by shell fire in the left side and in both arms but gives no date but most likely 6 / 7 July. (Soldier Effects records him dying of accidental injuries). He was probably a victim of the enemy counter barrage aimed at the battery. His obituary also states that he died in a casualty clearing station, probably one of the hospitals at Corbie; the town was a main casualty centre for the fighting in the southern sector of the Somme. Benjamin is buried in Corbie Communal Cemetery Extension. He is also commemorated at St Oswald’s Church, Oswestry.
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