Lance Corporal Alfred Arthur Edward Smith

8557 Lance Corporal Alfred Arthur Edward Smith, 2nd Battalion, Royal Berkshire Regiment, enlisted at the Regimental Depot barracks in Reading and was killed at the end of the Battle of Neuve Chapelle, 15 March 1915. His body was not recovered for burial, but his name is commemorated on the Le Touret Memorial (Panel 30). ‘The Royal Berkshires lost 46 killed, 6 dead from wounds, 215 wounded and eight missing. Among the dead is 8557 Acting Corporal A. Smith.' (Oxford Times, 17 April 1915, apparently understating the real figures of 75 killed, 223 wounded and 17 missing. Corporal Smith was among the missing).

Baptised at Holy Trinity Church, Headington Quarry on 24 November 1889, he was the son of Reconcile Smith (known as ‘Rex'), labourer and later chimney sweeper, born in Baldon, Oxon. (who died in 1944 at the age of 94), and Alice born in Warborough. In 1891 the family were living at Headington Quarry; by 1901 at Chapman's Yard, High Street, Wheatley, and by 1911 in Coombe Wood, Cuddesdon. Alfred was a brother of Gilbert Smith who also fought in the war, and returned.

He had lived at Littleworth, probably what is today No. 31.