ELEY Samuel Thomas

Samuel Eley was born on 2nd November 1890.  He entered Old Swinford Hospital on 21st December 1897 and left the school on 16th September 1904 to go as a stable boy to Mr Petley, Pedmore Hill, Pedmore.

Source for additional information: Old Foleyans Remembered Casualties of WW1 published by the Old Foleyans Association, October 1998.

Samuel Eley enlisted in the Australian Imperial Force on 10th November 1915 at Holdsworthy, New South Wales.  On his attestation paper he gave his age as 25, his place of birth as Stone, Kidderminster, Worcestershire, England, his occupation as a Railway Fettler and his next of kin as his wife, Helen Eley.  Samuel was 5 feet 10½ inches tall with blue eyes, brown hair and a fair complexion.  The couple had one daughter, Helen Ethel Eley.

Samuel sailed from Sydney on the €œBerrima€ on 17th December 1915, one assumes bound for Egypt as he joined the 2nd Battalion at Tel-el-Kebir on 14th February 1916.  Five weeks later on 22nd March 1916 he left Alexandria on the Invernia bound for Marseilles, France, where he disembarked on 28th March.  He remained serving in France, transferring to the Australian Machine Gun Corps on 25th March 1917.  Samuel was killed in action on 18th May 1917.

Australian Service records accessed via: https://recordsearch.naa.gov.au/
Reference: Barcode 3537418 Series Accession No B2455 Location: Canberra