CHAPMAN, Alfred
No. 32120, Private, Alfred Thomas CHAPMAN
Aged 35
11th (Service) Battalion, Hampshire Regiment
formerly G/20332, Middlesex Regiment.
Killed in Action on Friday 22nd March, 1918
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Born in Exning in Q1-1883 [Newmarket 3b:563], eldest son of James and Emma CHAPMAN (née DUNN), of North End, Exning, Newmarket. 1891 census...at North End, Exning were Alfred F? [8], his father James [33], groom/gardener, born Exning...his mother Emma [36] born Northants...his sister Maud [6], born Exning, and a lodger. 1901 census...at 4 Harraton Terrace, Exning were Alfred [18] a domestic gardener, his parents (mother born Ayhoe, Northants), his sister Maud, a dress maker and brother Frederick [6], born Exning. 1911 census...at Harraton Cottages, Exning were the same family unit. Frederick has also become a gardener. Alfred married Nellie Blanche STAPLES [21-7-1887] at St Agnes Church, Newmarket on 19th August, 1913. Alfred was resident in Great Shelford on enlistment. The pension card puts his widow at Bedford Lodge Cottage, Bury Road, Newmarket Alfred's entry in "Our Exning Heroes" reads as follows: CHAPMAN, A.T.. Hampshire Regiment Alfred Thomas Chapman worked for some years as a gardener for Lord Durham and afterwards he went to Great Shelford. On August 19th, 1913, he married Nellie Staples, of Newmarket, at St.Agnes' Church, and leaves no family. He joined the Army in June, 1916, and went out to France in the following November. He was killed at the village of St. Emilie, near the Somme, during the German great offensive, on March 22nd, 1918, at the age of 35. He used to spend a great deal of his spare time in drawing and painting, and was specially good at drawing horses. |
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The 11th (Service) Battalion, Hampshire Regiment was the Pioneer battalion of the 16th Irish Division. On 22nd March (the second day of the Kaiserschlacht)
the Division was trying to hold back the German advance in the Tincourt area. The German attack was very effective and as a result the 16th Irish Division
virtually ceased to exist from that day on. The battalion lost 24 killed on 22nd. The battalion was reduced to cadre strength in May 1918 and returned to England in June. |
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