LANGFORD Edgar

Appears in the Worcester/Worcestershire Roll of Honour Book for army casualties located in Worcester Cathedral.

Edgar Langford attended Worcester Royal Grammar School from 1909 to 1912. He was killed during the battle of the St. Quentin Canal, described in detail in the regimental diary. Scrambling from their trenches, the Worcester’s platoons attempted to advance across the rain drenched muddy ground encountering a storm of German shells. Heavily laden in deep mud, the troops were unable to keep up with the barrage allowing the German machine guns to spring into action with a hail of bullets that halted the attack. At 10.00am the battlefield became shrouded in mist allowing the survivors to return to their starting positions. Edgar Langdford was not one of those survivors, every officer and man of the first four platoons who led the attack had been killed in a storm of bullets at close range.

Sources for additional information: In Dedication to a Future World By Mark Rogers, 1999, The Worcestershire Regiment in the Great War by Captain H. FitzM. Stacke of the Regiment, 1928.

Great Western Railway Roll of Honour:
E. Langford Clerk, Traffic Dept, Much Wenlock, Age 21, Lance Corporal 2nd Battalion Worcestershire Regiment, Died 29/09/1917.

Source: The Great Western Railway in the First World War by Sandra Gittins, 2010

Death reported in the Great Western Railway staff magazine, reference 1919/01/09. Photo in the Great Western Railway staff magazine, reference 1918/12/177.

The same photograph of Private E. Langford of Worcester can be found in Berrow’s Worcester Journal Supplement, Saturday 23rd December 1916 and Saturday 3rd November 1917, available at Worcestershire Archives.