WALTER ERNEST ALEXANDER

1504, Lance Corporal

1st Battalion, The Newfoundland Regiment

Who died aged 24 on 5th July 1916

 

Cemetary Record 

Walter was the son of Robert and Annie Alexander who lived at Verandah Cottages in Bergh Apton before WW1 and who ended their days at Holly Hill on Sunnyside after spending some time in nearby Brooke.  Robert worked as an engineman (an early form of tractor driver) for the Brooke House estate of Lord Canterbury. 

Walter sailed to Newfoundland to join his twin brother Harry and got a job as a Fireman in the Bowater timber mill in Boswarlos on the west coast.  He volunteered for the Newfoundland Regiment on 30th April 1915.  

With the help of Canadian military researcher Dan Breen we obtained Walter’s complete military service record.  It includes letters from his mother and even the record of a monthly allotment he made to Maude Harvey of Boswarlos.  We think she must have been his sweetheart.  Her family made another connection with the Alexanders when her cousin Andrew Harvey came to Brooke in July 1919 to marry a girl from Robert Alexander’s home village of Syderstone.  Walter’s mother held the wedding reception for the newly-married couple at her family’s cottage nearby.  

Walter was one of 255 Newfoundlanders killed or mortally wounded in the Newfoundlander’s first attack at Beaumont Hamel on the Somme on the morning of 1 July 1916.  

He died at Beauval Casualty Clearing Station (CCS) near Amiens on 5th July 1916, aged 24 and is buried in the part of Beauval communal cemetery set aside for soldiers who died at the CCS.

 

 

Pictured: Walter Alexander in the uniform of the Newfoundland Regiment.  The photo was taken before he was promoted to Lance Corporal in November 1915.