| Description | Work completed by volunteer includes the following information:
Private Albert Spivey, Army Service Corps Base Horse Transport and Supply Depot, died in hospital in Honfleur, France on 5 Jun 1918. He died as a result of unspecified “sickness” though the Beverley Guardian of 15 Jun 1918 gave a different view, claiming that Albert had been “killed by the collapse of a trench on which he was working.” The ASC (after late 1918 the RASC) were responsible for the British Army’s logistics, in other words the movement of men, food, ammunition and supplies from Britain to France and then on to front lines using water, rail, horse and mechanical transportation. Albert’s army number, S/407339, suggests that he worked at one of the Channel Port bases which were used for the organisation of men and materials before being sent on to the front. It would seem that he died in this area of France. Albert is buried at the Sainte Marie Cemetery at Le Havre, on the French Channel coast. He was awarded the War and Victory Medals.
Albert Spivey was born in Beverley the 3 Aug 1886, the son of John Brankston Spivey and Hannah, both of Beverley who married in 1879. John worked in a local manure works. Albert had seven siblings and the family lived in Grovehill Road and then at Denton Street, Beverley. Albert attended St Nicholas’ School. He became a baker and confectioner with the Co-Operative Stores. In 1911 he was living at home with his parents but he then moved to work in Sunderland and at the outbreak of the war was living and working at Blyth, Northumberland. Albert was unmarried.
He enlisted in Sunderland on 6 Dec 1915 and was to spend much of the rest of the war in France. Albert is remembered on the Hengate War Memorial and on the East Riding Memorial in Beverley Minster.
Includes photograph, information taken from census, military records, Commonwealth War Graves, newspapers |