| Description | Work completed by volunteer includes the following information:
Alfred was aged 34, and married with 2 young daughters when war broke out in 1914. He was a joiner by trade and had married Edith Sowen in St Mary’s Church in Mar 1909. In 1911 the family were living at 23 Wainfleet Avenue, Cottingham and both daughters, Mollie and Bessie were born in Cottingham. Alfred was brought up in Beverley, the son of George and Charlotte Walker. George, a sawyer, died at aged 38 when Alfred was 14. In 1911 his mother and youngest siblings were living at 18 Spencer Street, Beverley.
Alfred enlisted in Dec 1915, by which time he and his family had moved to 112 Lairgate, Beverley. He wasn’t called from the Reserves until the following June. Private Walker joined the 3rd Yorkshire Regiment, 2nd Infantry Works Company and in Aug1916 he was in Middlesbrough. By the end of Oct he was discharged on medical grounds. He died on 6 Nov 1916 from cancer of the stomach and liver.
There is no photograph of Alfred but his Commonwealth War Graves Commission headstone can be found in Queensgate Cemetery and he is remembered on both the Beverley War Memorial in Hengate and on the Memorial in Beverley Minster. He is also named alongside his father and mother on the family’s gravestone in Queensgate Cemetery.
Includes information taken from census, military records, Commonwealth War Graves, newspapers |