Benjamin Stevens (1895-1918)

Post date: Mar 15, 2018 3:49:30 PM

Benjamin was born in Offham and in the 1901 census he is shown as the youngest child of Elizabeth and Richard Stevens. Richard was the farm baliff at Moorfield Farm. His 4 siblings, George T., Emma, William and Richard, were all much older than he was.

In the 1911 census Benjamin, aged 16, was living at 1, Springdale Terrace, Nettlestead (5 rooms) with his widowed mother, Elizabeth. Benjamin was a farm labourer and his mother is described as a Housekeeper- they had 2 boarders living with them. His mother does not complete the section of the census about how many children she had had but there is a two year old grandchild, Ivy Baldwin, also living there.

In May 1915 the vicar published a list of "the names of those of our young men at home who have already felt the call and have offered themselves but have been rejected on medical grounds. Otherwise their staying at home might be misunderstood by those who would not know the facts." His objective would appear to be to stop them being targeted by ladies with white feathers. The 13 listed included Benjamin Stevens.

However, medical standards for recruitment obviously changed and by January 1917 Benjamin is included on the vicar's list of parishioners serving and is shown as serving abroad.

Weekly Casualty list from the War Office and Air Ministry includes B. Stevens (service number 25234) of Wateringbury in its list of casualties in its 10th July edition showing that he had "died of wounds". He was in the 1st Battalion Grenadier Guards then serving in the Somme area of France.

He is buried at the Bagneux British Cemetery at Gezaincourt, a village in the Somme 20 miles north east of Albert. There are 1,374 graves there. Gezaincourt was the location of the 3rd, 29th and 56th Casualty Clearing Stations (CCS) from April 1918 to September 1918 so it is likely that Benjamin had been wounded earlier perhaps a few miles away before being brought to one of the Gezaincourt's CCS.