Alfred Joseph Terry: A Kent Working-Class Life

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Alfred Joseph Terry was a Cheriton man whose life reflected the working-class experience of early twentieth-century Kent: local schooling, labouring and service work, military service in the First World War, and later civilian employment in Folkestone. He was born on 29 March 1894 in Cheriton, the son of Joseph Terry and Georgina Lilian Mount, and grew up in the parish before leaving school for work. In the 1911 census he was living at 32 Park Road and working in laundry, a reminder that before the war he was part of the everyday labouring life of the Folkestone area. [1][2]

By the outbreak of the First World War, Terry was a young local man of military age, and his later record suggests that he served with the Kent Cyclist Battalion before transferring to the Royal Engineers. He married Nora Alice Mummery in 1922, and by the later 1930s he was living at 7 Heritage Road, Folkestone, employed as a painter. His life was rooted in the east Kent coast, where family, work, and local service intertwined closely. [1]

He was a local man twice shaped by war: first as a soldier in the Great War, and later as a civilian victim of the Luftwaffe.

Early Life and Family

Terry’s family background places him firmly in the ordinary social history of Kent in the Edwardian period. He was the son of Joseph Terry and Georgina Lilian Mount, and in 1901 he was recorded in Cheriton as a seven-year-old living with his parents. The family appears again in the documentary record at 32 Park Road, a Cheriton address that later remained part of Terry’s own story. [1]

His early working life was practical and unglamorous, reflecting the patterns of employment available to many young men in the area. The 1911 census records him as being in laundry work, and after the First World War he found employment with painter and decorator E. Mason, Hayward and Paramore in Folkestone. By the time of the Second World War he was still working in the same broad trade, and in the 1939 Register he was listed as a painter at 7 Heritage Road. [1]

Military Service

Terry’s military service began in 1915, when he entered the British Army during the pressure years of the First World War. The record shows service numbers 1076 and 265361 in the Kent Cyclist Battalion, later followed by service number 574561 in the Royal Engineers. He also received the Victory Medal and British War Medal, confirming wartime service overseas or in a qualifying theatre. [1]

The Kent Cyclist Battalion was one of the Territorial Force’s cyclist units, originally intended for reconnaissance, communications, and coastal defence. Terry’s report identifies the 2/1st Kent Cyclist Battalion, the second-line unit formed in late 1914 at Canterbury, which remained in Britain throughout the war. This battalion’s role was home defence: guarding key points, patrolling the coastline, and helping to maintain readiness while the first-line Territorial units served elsewhere. [2][3][1]

Although the battalion did not see overseas combat, it was still part of Britain’s wartime military machine and moved through several Kent and south-east England stations as demands changed. The report notes that in 1916 it was at Canterbury, later joining the 6th Cyclist Brigade of the 2nd Cyclist Division, then moving through the 1st Mounted Division, the 67th (2nd Home Counties) Division, and eventually back to the Cyclist Division before disbandment after the war. Its service illustrates how even units that never left the United Kingdom performed essential defensive and administrative work during the conflict. [2][1]

Context at Time of Death

At the time of Terry’s death in July 1940, the relevant military context was not a front-line combat unit but the home front defence of Kent during the Battle of Britain period. Canterbury Aerodrome at Bekesbourne lay in a county that had become strategically important because of its airfields, transport links, and proximity to the Channel. German air raids on east Kent formed part of the wider attempt to disrupt British communications, morale, and military readiness during the summer of 1940. [1]

Terry himself was no longer in military service at that time, but his earlier Army experience remained part of his life story and is central to understanding the biography preserved in the family record. The report states that he had been in India during the war, which suggests that at some stage his First World War service took him beyond the Kent-based cyclist unit and into a broader Imperial military environment. This overseas service, though not fully detailed in the surviving notes, helps explain why his medal entitlement includes the Victory Medal and British War Medal. [1]

The Kent Cyclist Battalion existed to defend Britain itself, patrolling and guarding the coast while larger formations fought abroad.

Circumstances of Death

Alfred Joseph Terry was killed on 3 July 1940 at Bekesbourne, near Canterbury Aerodrome, when a German aircraft attacked open ground near a party of workmen. The report says that a lone enemy plane, diving from the clouds, dropped four bombs, including one delayed-action bomb, and that Terry was killed by flying splinters from one of the blasts. Three other men were injured, among them Charles Baldwin, Arthur Reginald Pollard, and E. W. Clarke. [1]

The newspapers described the attack as an east Kent raid victim story, and the family record confirms that he died at Canterbury Aerodrome, Bekesbourne. His death took place in the first summer of the war, at a moment when the Luftwaffe was intensifying attacks on airfields and nearby communities across the south-east. Even though he was a civilian, the setting of his death linked him directly to the war effort and to the dangers faced by workers in strategically sensitive parts of Kent. [1]

Burial and Commemoration

Terry was buried on 6 July 1940 at St Martin’s Church, Cheriton, close to the community in which he had been born and raised. The report also notes that he was of 7 Heritage Road, Cheriton, and was the husband of Nora Alice Terry. His burial in a local churchyard ensured that his resting place remained tied to the neighbourhood that had shaped his life. [1]

His Commonwealth War Graves Commission record provides the official wartime commemoration, while the local press notice preserves the human and domestic detail of his death. The same record identifies him as a casualty of the Second World War, despite the fact that his military service belonged to the First World War and his death resulted from an air raid. That dual identity as veteran and civilian casualty makes him a particularly poignant figure in local remembrance. [1]

Legacy

Alfred Joseph Terry’s life tells a story common to many men of his generation: a boyhood in a Kent village, a working life in ordinary trades, military service in the Great War, marriage, and then an untimely death during a later war that again reached east Kent. He leaves behind a record of family continuity as well as loss, being survived by his widow and daughter. For family historians, such a life bridges two global conflicts and reminds us that the war’s impact was not confined to soldiers at the front. [1]

His earlier service with the 2/1st Kent Cyclist Battalion is also historically significant because it reflects the regional structure of Territorial Force defence in Kent. Cyclist battalions were intended for patrols, message running, and rapid local response, and the 2/1st battalion’s wartime career shows how the county’s men were organised to protect home territory while the Army adapted to the strain of war. Terry’s biography therefore belongs both to family history and to the wider military history of Kent. [2][1]

Sources and Further Reading

• Commonwealth War Graves Commission: Alfred Joseph Terry
• The Long, Long Trail: Cyclist Battalions of the Territorial Force Infantry
• National Army Museum: Corps of Royal Engineers
• Kent Cyclists: local historical summary and unit notes
• Find a Grave