Albert was born on 25th April 1909 in Woodchester to William and Elizabeth (Herbert). The family was large; William had 6 children from a first marriage that left him widowed. He married Elizabeth Herbert in 1891 and they had nine more children.
Albert was the youngest child. His mother died in 1911 and his father in 1915 leaving him an orphan at the age of 6. An older brother, Edwin, was killed in France in 1918 and is remembered on the Woodchester War Memorial and Wayside Cross.
The 1921 census shows Albert aged 12, and at school, in the household of his 26-year-old sister, Margaret, who was also providing a home for three of his older siblings at High St, Woodchester.
Albert married Doris Kemp in 1937, and a daughter Marlene was born in 1939. They lived at Whiteholme Cottages, Kingscourt when the 1939 register was compiled, and Alfred was employed as a printer’s journeyman at Arthur’s Press in Woodchester. He was a former Woodchester team footballer.
Albert served as Gunner 11401652, 173 Bty., 62 H.A.A. Regt., Royal Artillery. He was aged 34 when he died at sea, of wounds on 19th January 1943. He is buried in Gibraltar. The chain of events leading to his death is unclear.
Doris was then living in a house in Stanfields, since demolished. In 1945 she was married in Stroud to Felix Kalpokas, an American serviceman, and with their new baby, she and Marlene went to join him in the States in 1946.
This was a large local family. Does anyone have any more information or a photo of Albert?
