Bernard Samuel Easthope was born at Burton-on-Trent in 1895, the youngest of the four sons of Joseph Thomas and Marie Easthope. He grew up at Bosbury in Herefordshire where his father was the landlord of the Crown Inn and Hotel. By 1911 the family had moved to Belper in Derbyshire and his father was now running a drapery business in Market Place with Bernard as his apprentice. He enlisted at Oswestry in 1914, with the 7th Battalion King’s Shropshire Light Infantry, although he gave his residence as still being in Belper. How he came to Oswestry is not known – but there is a family connection to Shropshire with his father and grandparents being from Ludlow. It is possible that he had moved to Oswestry for work and, because of the family connection to the county, chose the King’s Shropshire Light Infantry rather than a Staffordshire or Derbyshire or Herefordshire Regiment.

His battalion landed in France on the 29th September 1915 and by the end of April 1916 they had been moved to the southern sector of the Ypres Salient, occupying trenches near St. Eloi. At the beginning of May the battalion relieved the 8th E. Yorks in Ridge Wood as Brigade reserve and nightly supplied large working parties to restore support lines and communication trenches. The battalion War Diary records that on the nights of the 30th April to 1st May three other ranks were killed and 11 were wounded. It is probable that Bernard, who died of his wounds on 3rd of May, was one of the latter.

Bernard is buried in Bailleul Communal Cemetery and is also commemorated on the Belper War Memorial.

His brother Harold Frank who served in the R.A.S.C. during the war and survived, named his son, born in October 1916, Bernard Samuel in memory of his brother.

Acknowledgements.The Derby and Derbyshire War Memorials Project

References and Sources

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