Private Edward George Evans, G/10430, served with the 13th Battalion, Duke of Cambridge’s Own (Middlesex Regiment), during the First World War. He was killed in action on 31 August 1916, aged twenty-two, at the height of the Somme campaign, and is commemorated on the Thiepval Memorial to the Missing. [1][2]
From a baker’s vanman in Herne Bay to a soldier on the Somme, Edward Evans’s life was cut short during some of the fiercest fighting endured by the Middlesex Regiment in 1916.
Early Life and Family
Edward George Evans was born in Hastings, Sussex, in about March 1895, his birth being registered in the first quarter of that year in the Hastings registration district. He was the son of James Evans and Susanna Stoodley, and the family was living at 7 Lennox Street, Hastings, by the 1901 census, when Edward was recorded as a nine-year-old son in his parents’ household. [1]
By 1911 Edward had moved from Sussex to Kent. The census of that year places him at 9 Mason Terrace, Herne Bay, where he was a seventeen-year-old single boarder employed as a baker’s vanman. This work would have required long hours and regular travel through the town and surrounding villages, delivering bread and provisions at a period when horse-drawn and early motor transport were both common features of daily life. [1]
On 19 May 1912 Edward married Ethel Carrie Hughes at St George’s Church, Ramsgate, Kent. Both were young: Edward was about seventeen and Ethel was of a similar generation. Their marriage was registered in the Ramsgate district, and the surviving family material records no children from the union. [1]
By 1915 Edward was living in Ramsgate, Kent, at an address transcribed in the service material as “4 Plains of Water”, although the precise wording should be checked against the original document. His military records also show that, at the time of enlistment or attestation, he was described as the head of his household despite his young age. Later official commemoration records give his parents’ address as 285 Harold Road, Hastings, while his widow Ethel was living at 3 Redvers Villas, Brighton, Sussex. [2][1]
Military Service
Edward enlisted for service in the British Army during 1915 and was assigned the service number G/10430 in the Middlesex Regiment, formally the Duke of Cambridge’s Own (Middlesex Regiment). He served in the Western European theatre as a Private, the army’s most junior rank but one that carried the full burden of front-line infantry service. [2][1]
The family report identifies two battalions in Edward’s service history: the 6th Battalion and the 13th Battalion (Service), Middlesex Regiment. The 6th Battalion was a reserve and training formation during the war, based in Britain and responsible for preparing recruits and supplying trained men as drafts for active-service units. Edward was therefore likely trained or held with the 6th Battalion before being posted overseas to the 13th Battalion, although only the surviving service file or medal-roll documentation could establish the exact date of that transfer. [3][1]
The 13th Battalion was a wartime “Service” battalion raised as part of Lord Kitchener’s volunteer army. It belonged to 73rd Brigade, 24th Division, and served on the Western Front, first in Flanders and then on the Somme in 1916. Like many New Army units, its soldiers came from varied civilian backgrounds, but after training they were expected to undertake the same trench duties, raids, attacks and defensive tasks as the Regular Army formations beside them. [4][5]
Unit Context at Time of Death
By late July 1916 the 13th Middlesex had moved from Flanders to the Somme battlefront with 73rd Brigade and the 24th Division. The battalion was committed to operations in the Guillemont and Delville Wood sector, a devastated landscape of woods, trenches, shell craters and shattered villages south-east of Albert. [5][4]
At the end of August, the battalion was involved in the struggle around Delville Wood and Tea Trench. On 30 August 1916 the 13th Middlesex fought in the area of Tea Trench and reportedly suffered approximately 400 casualties in a single day. This was a devastating loss for one battalion and demonstrates the intensity of the local fighting immediately before Edward’s recorded death. [5]
The fighting was part of the prolonged Battle of the Somme, in which British forces sought to capture and hold successive German defensive positions. Even where no major named battle was taking place, men endured artillery bombardment, sniper fire, machine-gun fire, patrol activity and attacks on damaged trench systems. A soldier could be killed while advancing, consolidating a captured position, carrying supplies, relieving another unit, or simply while occupying the front line. [4][5]
The 13th Middlesex had suffered catastrophic losses at Tea Trench on 30 August 1916; Edward Evans died the following day, amid the continuing battle around Delville Wood.
13th Battalion, Middlesex Regiment, Somme operations
Circumstances of Death
Private Edward George Evans was killed in action in France on 31 August 1916. The Commonwealth War Graves Commission records him as serving with the 13th Battalion, Middlesex Regiment, under service number G/10430, and gives his age as twenty-two. His date of death came immediately after the 13th Battalion’s costly action around Tea Trench on 30 August, making it highly likely that he died during the continuing operations, their aftermath, or the attempt to maintain positions won at such severe cost. [2][5]
No known grave survives for Edward. The absence of an identified burial is consistent with the conditions of the Somme battlefield, where intense shellfire could destroy graves, scatter remains or prevent the recovery of the dead. He is therefore recorded among the missing rather than in an individual cemetery grave. [2][1]
Edward’s death was not only a loss to his regiment. It left his wife Ethel a widow and was formally recognised in the Army’s pension and effects records, which preserve the names and addresses of the family members affected by his death. The records also show that he was one of the men whose sacrifice connected families in Hastings, Ramsgate, Herne Bay and Brighton with the battlefields of northern France. [1]
Burial and Commemoration
Edward is commemorated on the Thiepval Memorial to the Missing of the Somme, on Pier and Face 12 D and 13 B. The memorial stands near the village of Thiepval in the Somme department of France and records the names of more than 72,000 British and South African servicemen who died in the Somme sector before 20 March 1918 and have no known grave. [2][1]
His Commonwealth War Graves Commission entry records him as the son of Mr and Mrs James Evans of 285 Harold Road, Hastings, and the husband of Ethel C. Evans of 3 Redvers Villas, Brighton. This formal inscription preserves the family relationships that lay behind the bare military facts of rank, number, regiment and date of death. [2]
Edward is also listed in the Find a Grave index under memorial number 12398173, which provides an additional online route to his Thiepval commemoration. His entitlement to the British War Medal and Victory Medal is implied by his overseas service and is consistent with the standard campaign awards made to men who served in the British forces on the Western Front during the Great War. [1]
Legacy
Edward George Evans’s life illustrates the experience of many young working men of the First World War generation. He grew up in Hastings, found work in Kent as a baker’s vanman, married in Ramsgate, and entered army service while still in his early twenties. Within little more than a year of enlistment, he was serving with a New Army battalion on the Somme during one of the most punishing periods of the entire war. [5][1]
His story also reveals the consequences of service for those at home. His parents in Hastings and his widow in Brighton were named in the official records created after his death, while the Thiepval Memorial provided a place of remembrance when no individual grave could be visited. For later generations, the surviving civil, census, marriage, pension, effects and military records allow the outline of his life to be recovered with greater humanity and detail. [1][2]
The family report identifies Edward as the first husband of the researcher’s fourth cousin once removed. His inclusion in a family-history record therefore ensures that he is remembered not simply as one of the missing of the Somme, but as a husband, son, worker and soldier whose life was rooted in the communities of Sussex and Kent. [1]
Sources and Further Reading
- Commonwealth War Graves Commission: Private Edward G. Evans, G/10430, 13th Battalion, Middlesex Regiment
- Find a Grave: Edward G. Evans, Thiepval Memorial
- The Long, Long Trail: The Duke of Cambridge’s Own (Middlesex Regiment)
- The Wartime Memories Project: 13th Battalion, Middlesex Regiment
- Middlesex Regiment on the Somme: 13th Battalion and Tea Trench, August 1916
- Imperial War Museums: Thiepval Memorial to the Missing of the Somme
- Ancestry: census, pension, service and soldiers’ effects records cited in the family report
Sources
[1] Individual-Report-for-Edward-George-Evans.pdf https://ppl-ai-file-upload.s3.amazonaws.com/web/direct-files/attachments/141549598/fa700676-f1bd-4c3e-a501-0267b47bebed/Individual-Report-for-Edward-George-Evans.pdf?AWSAccessKeyId=ASIA2F3EMEYE5AVQOICQ&Signature=lFzMvs83t23CRU5j2UhspQAmyQk%3D&x-amz-security-token=IQoJb3JpZ2luX2VjEJ%2F%2F%2F%2F%2F%2F%2F%2F%2F%2F%2FwEaCXVzLWVhc3QtMSJHMEUCIGJmev4ksc%2FpOrgJM9DKnqieMg4f8S5JvwlxEbjy9zPfAiEAoedm5kgtUEB74oQAY0UEE6%2BplTa2NZVMIxGt6Zx9NfIq8wQIaBABGgw2OTk3NTMzMDk3MDUiDN3JDCaAjeiHmjsBDSrQBE0wxvVrirBzAepw4wPd254zQwilnszH3z9rhAcdEnOJmDTmdaG5oJDr%2FEy%2F8yuAk6wfmE1wnFk5G28L7%2FJ09pdt8rXqN9tdSt4309PrvOVQk5Sfwr5Trlu4LQhiogAJNvzb%2BZ11QUlk2y9N7OYP1yPoEUt04oIq7OUSJfgsOzzP%2FZA0U8k7J%2Bc8TN5mZxHhPH4IfiYrJBtj%2BB1pYPkR2Ee8L5xw3TJofjQvWuSTiB3w3dIkzBLW1MVXkCmmdAcvNFk4uevB907O7nTnCfR9Qxq86cQaPhHTKQZlfH4dyDEn2NdCCPwOUEeQuMdfIKlvpikSfYAL1E%2Fil3yWW8jQPMMGoNk4x1T1jucr3viSubc2Tm2dnZZcJWeVozgwRKnm7IZP%2BSn%2B7NObkkyL8PO0xFecqBUzqQVkHptFcYJZZEGUeJGMpWXRykE6HRI1NJIUI1OZWx%2BFXH096WqAjEB%2FTPDouBsABlTikVWvj%2BpBFWvUuWC52kTOLEaokxXhiJj3VwWivhZymttEsTTo6OVrw7HPK2pUSGbes4XlPUdCHzl2CzWPSwL%2FXcDjcm638xMxsdw%2Fi4gLTNhQwVWvhtzuE0x7HPc%2B6PM79MumuyppPQnMdeZUrZXgBtyfwf4ZDM7Kya4lRsWb0X2jI4SHjON3zr1HlUshXVQBmPp5JfonlysnpbhKzTd5PHvCBi1lUAcz1TG5KwxdJgfKrFanWfnh9zWMX4Qnb0VEawn%2BtCrb37ZOVK9b0UvF6nbAK0o90xcSrQ9TLPHIrKpVPGvi06l9sgAww%2BbL1AY6mAGu%2Fczmi5%2BYZFh%2FHmv4%2BI%2Buk7Ghw45qWY5ZHXbgSW0eYWctX%2FgBsJYEWpubryMlyx8tXiZEPHGByvU818cR%2BOT2Yk%2F1QUP%2F1pwlnSG9QgjbeOJEFZl3eHMyBtyQ%2By95lNUNPfCyvuFTyhEvrBRlLS8Zp9GEHVYrJ7pYjVkd%2FV6fafdz82ECWnkTvn4yTVudvkbAQSy7EeGLFQ%3D%3D&Expires=1788017315
[2] Private Edward G. Evans | War Casualty Details 753743 | CWGC https://www.cwgc.org/find-records/find-war-dead/casualty-details/753743/edward-g-evans/
[3] The Duke of Cambridge’s Own (Middlesex Regiment) https://www.longlongtrail.co.uk/army/regiments-and-corps/the-british-infantry-regiments-of-1914-1918/the-duke-of-cambridges-own-middlesex-regiment/
[4] 13th Battalion, Middlesex Regiment in the Great War https://www.wartimememoriesproject.com/greatwar/allied/battalion.php?pid=6714
[5] Middlesex Regiment on the Somme https://somme1916.wordpress.com/2015/12/16/middlesex-regiment-on-the-somme/
[6] 13th Bn Middlesex regiment action of August 1916 – Great War Forum https://www.greatwarforum.org/topic/106080-13th-bn-middlesex-regiment-action-of-august-1916/
[7] Middlesex Regiment – Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Middlesex_Regiment
[8] Battle of the Somme order of battle – Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_the_Somme_order_of_battle
[9] 1 July 1916 – Somme | Emanuel School at War – WordPress.com https://emanuelschoolatwar.wordpress.com/2016/06/30/1-july-1916-somme/
[10] 13th Middlesex Regt. – WW1 – War Diary | Transcription of the … https://13thmiddlesexww1.wordpress.com/
[11] Battle of the Somme – more stories – National Records of Scotland https://www.nrscotland.gov.uk/learning-and-events/first-world-war/battle-of-the-somme-more-stories/
[12] Middlesex Regiment | Great War London https://greatwarlondon.wordpress.com/tag/middlesex-regiment/
[13] Middlesex Regiment 1916 – Soldiers and their units – Great War Forum https://www.greatwarforum.org/topic/32163-middlesex-regiment-1916/
[14] 13th MIDDLESEX – BATTLE OF THE SOMME ROLL OF HONOUR https://somme-roll-of-honour.com/Units/british/13th_Middlesex.htm
[15] 2nd MIDDLESEX – BATTLE OF THE SOMME ROLL OF HONOUR https://somme-roll-of-honour.com/Units/british/2nd_Middlesex.htm
[16] Private Frederick Tucker | First World War Story | For Evermore https://www.cwgc.org/stories/stories/private-frederick-tucker-g-7925-13th-service-battalion-middlesex-regiment/