WILKES Albert Ernest

Albert Ernest Wilkes was born in Tewkesbury in the summer of 1896, the son of Ernest Caleb Wilkes, a grocer’s assistant of Trinity Street and his wife Maud (formerly Luker). His mother hailed from Overbury and his father was born in Birmingham, the son of Caleb Wilkes and part of the brazier family after whom Wilkes Alley was named. The family stayed in Tewkesbury, adding two more children but a third was born in 1910 in Rockland Cottage, Beckford. By this time Albert had left the Council School and was occupied as a carter’s boy on a farm, while his father’s occupation was recorded as an insurance agent working for Prudential Assurance.

In 1914, Albert was an early volunteer, being claimed by the Council School, Chance Street and he was allocated into the 10th Battalion of the Gloucesters, the new Battalion formed at Bristol in September 1914 as part of Kitchener’s Army. Having been billeted in Cheltenham over winter, 1914-1915, the battalion was sent onto Salisbury Plain for divisional training where Lee Enfield rifles and khaki uniforms were issued in May 1915. It was then one of the earliest Kitchener battalions sent to France on 8 August 1915 where it was attached to the 1st Infantry Brigade in the 1st Division. The battalion was soon involved in the Battle of Loos (25 September-18 October 1915), in which it suffered significant losses: 459 men, including L/Cpl. A. Harrison, Cpl Simms and Pte Nunney and Sgt. Hall. It was the first battle in which poison gas was used by the British Army; despite heavy casualties, there was considerable success on the first day in breaking into the deep enemy positions near Loos but the opportunities could not be exploited, resulting in a costly stalemate. The official end of the battle brought little respite: the Battalion then stayed in the trenches all winter, with routine deaths due to sniper fire and pneumonia. Albert was awarded the 1914-15 Star medal for his participation in this battle.

The battalion did not see action again until July 1916 during the Battles of the Somme. It did not participate on the opening day, 1 July 1916, but was involved 10 days later in burying the dead from the initial assaults although, during that operation, four men were killed and 24 wounded through enemy shellfire. On 22 July the battalion was in the front line south of Martinpuich preparing for an attack the following day. At 12.30am on 23 July the battalion went over the top as part of an offensive led by Australian forces, supported by the British 1st and 48th Divisions, to capture the village of Pozieres and the dominant Pozieres Ridge to the north. The action was known as the Battle of Pozieres (23 July-3 September 1916) and L/Cpl Wilkes was one of the fatal casualties of the first day. On 23 July, one officer and 11 other ranks from the battalion were killed, 61 were wounded and 74 were missing. Albert’s body was never recovered or identified and his name is one of nearly 73,000 commemorated on the Thiepval Memorial to the Missing at the heart of the Somme battlefield. As his family had left Tewkesbury before the war, his role was not recorded in an obituary by any of the local newspapers.

Albert Ernest Wilkes is commemorated in Tewkesbury Abbey as a volunteer and on the school Roll Of Honour for the Council Schools. He is also remembered on the village War Memorial in Beckford.

Albert Wilkes has no known grave, the photograph available shows his name on Thiepval Memorial.