SMITH Archibald Fisher

Additional information on the memorial: Aug. 1 1917

Name given as Alan Archibald Fisher-Smith on Commonwealth War Graves Commission and Soldiers Died in the Great War.

The birth of Archibald Fisher Smith is registered in the September Quarter 1894 under the Wolverhampton Registration District.

The following information has been researched by Jeff Taylor:
Barnt Green Officer Killed
“A very Gallant English Gentleman”
Lieutenant A.A. Fisher Smith, Coldstream Guards attached to the Machine Gun Company of the Guards Brigade, fought throughout the day on the 31 July 1917. We hear that at one point of the day he rushed up to a gap in the line, and he then went back and brought up some Guardsmen to fight it. His commandant writes a eulogistic account of his splendid behaviour in the attack, and says that he had this from seven of his men, quite independently. Who said that “he was wounded in the neck early in the day, but carried on in the most plucky manner.” He was killed by a shell instantaneously. A brother officer writes: “Your son died most gloriously at the head of his men, and he died painlessly. His death leaves a very big gap indeed. The only comfort you have is that he died like a very gallant English gentleman, and that his men all speak of him in the most sincere terms of admiration and affection.”
Lieutenant Fisher Smith was the only son of Mr and Mrs R.T. Smith, of Barnt Green, and was 23 years of age. He was a grandson of the late Mr Fisher Smith, who for some years was principal mines agent to Lord Dudley, and resided at the Priory, Dudley. He had entered on a dramatic career, having taken a scholarship at the Academy of Dramatic Art, whence Messrs. Vedrenne and Eadie engaged him for a term of three years at the Royalty Theatre. He obtained his commission in the Gloucestershire Regiment in June 1915, and his transfer to the Coldstream Guards a year later.