Lewis Smith (1885-1917)

Post date: Feb 23, 2017 6:37:6 PM

Lewis John was born in the 3rd quarter of 1885 and in the 1891 census was living with his family at Pond Villa, Wateringbury -probably near the Telegraph pub at the bottom of Bow Road. His father was a coachman. Lewis attended Wateringbury School but does not feature in the school log. By the 1901 census he has left school and is employed as a "Gardener's Boy Domestic." From the 1911 census, by when Lewis had left home, we learn that his mother, Alice, still living in Wateringbury, had had 8 children in total before her husband died and 6 were still alive in 1911.

He had enlisted in Cricklewood, London when he was living at Childs Hill London, but his service record is not available and we do not know when he joined. The 8th battalion of the Royal Fusiliers was a service battalion first formed in August 1914. It fought at Gallipoli and the Somme.

The October 1917 Village Magazine records that

"L.-Cpl. Lewis John Smith, Northumberland Fusiliers, killed in action in France, Aug. 16th, 1917."

His death was during the assault known as the Third Ypres or Passchendaele, which began at the end of July, quickly became a dogged struggle against determined opposition and the rapidly deteriorating weather. The 16th August was the date of a second major attack on a wide front which incurred 15,000 casualties on that day although on Lewis' section of the front the 11th Division did gain a 1,000 yards of ground. The campaign finally came to a close in November with the capture of Passchendaele.

The Commonwealth War Graves Commission has for him the same date of death and rank. His service number was 46310 and he was in the 8th battalion of the Northumberland Fusiliers. It is probable the Village Magazine is wrong in saying he was killed in France and Belgium is more likely. He is commemorated on the Tyne Cot Memorial, designed by Sir Herbert Baker and located 9 kilometres north east of Ieper town centre, on the Tynecotstraat, a road leading from the Zonnebeekseweg (N332). There are 11,961 Commonwealth servicemen of the First World War buried or commemorated in Tyne Cot Cemetery, 8,373 of these are unidentified.