BORN – Oswestry
HOMEFRONT – Place – Oswestry / Occupations– – Stable Boy / Regular Army / St Oswald’s Church(WM)
UNIT – 1 Bn Kings Shropshire Light Infantry
RANK – Private 9719
THEATRE – 1914 / Battle of Armentières, 1 Bn King’s Shropshire Light Infantry; 13 October – 2 November 1914.
DIED – KIA 24 October 1914. Aged (CWGC) gives 24 – corrected to 19/20
BURIED – Ploegsteert Memorial (grave unknown).
Bert White was born at Oswestry. CWGC gives his age as 24, therefore born in 1890. However, census and birth registration gives his birth as 1894/5 giving an age of 19 or 20. It is probable the latter is correct given that his mother, Elizabeth Fanny Jones, and father, William White, did not marry until 1894. His father died two years later and two years after that his mother re-married David Burton and moved to 5 Linenhall Street, Chester. In 1901 and 1911 he was living with his grandparents, first at Chirk Mill and then at 53 Upper Brook Street, Oswestry where he was working as a groom and stable boy. He probably joined the regular army, enlisting at Oswestry, around 1912/13 when he turned 18 years old, at which time he gave his mother’s address in Chester. He went over to France with 1 Bn KSLI on 10 September 1914. He fell at the Battle of Armentières 23 October-2 November, 1914. He has no known grave and is commemorated on the Ploegsteert Memorial. He is also on the war memorial in St Oswald’s Church, Oswestry.
Killed in the same action were Private 10135 William Grady, Private 7121 Samuel Richard Lawrence and Private 10191 Albert Foulkes (West Felton War Memorial), all on the Ploegsteert Memorial..
Acknowledgements.
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