Leicestershire Regiment
Albert Holyland was born in Wigston Magna, Leicestershire in early 1898. He was the son of Thomas Holyland (1867-1927) and his wife Elizabeth (née Williamson: 1863-1918). The couple had eight children, six of whom (four boys and two girls) had survived up to the time of the 1911 Census. The family were then living at Wigston Magna, Thomas Holyland being employed as a van driver, whilst Albert was still at school.
A local directory compiled in 1914 shows Albert living at 76 Fairfield Street, Leicester; occupation ‘fancy goods director’. A local newspaper report in 1915 indicates that he ran a market stall selling such goods.
Unfortunately, no Army Service or Pension Records appear to have survived for Albert, however some basic facts about his military service can be gleaned from the Silver War Badge Register (SWB) and his Medal Roll Index Card (MIC) and the Medal Roll (MR) itself. The SWB register states that he enlisted on 28 May 1915 (when he would have been seventeen years of age) and was discharged, due to wounds, on 11 October 1918, having served overseas. Interestingly his age is showing as being twenty-two. In fact it was twenty, which would appear to indicate that when he enlisted, he added a couple of years to his actual age, as this would have qualified him for service abroad, the minimum age for which was nineteen. His name is included in a casualty listing published in the Leicester Daily Post of 19 August 1916, which makes it highly likely that he sustained the wounds during the Somme Offensive of 1916.
His MIC states that the first went to the Western Front on 2 December 1915 and according to the MR he first served with the 8th Battalion of the Leicestershire Regiment. This battalion was involved in the Somme Offensive. He was then posted to the 9th Battalion, which was an entirely UK based Reserve Battalion, where he may have been placed whilst he recovered from his wounds. He then appears to have returned to the 8th Battalion and finally ended up with the 6th Battalion.
The Gloucestershire connection comes from his marriage on 10 February 1919 to Fanny Rosina Jones, at St Mary de Lode, Gloucester. The marriage register records that they were both aged twenty-one years and that Albert was a hosiery warehouseman. How, why and when he came to live in Gloucester is unknown.
Albert died on 18 February 1920, aged 22; the cause of death is unknown. A recently released Pension Record Card states that he died of a ‘specific (but unspecified) disease’ and that his wife, living at 10 St Mary’s Street, Gloucester was refused an Army Widow’s Pension as her husband had been discharged from the Army prior to their marriage. He was buried in Gloucester Old Cemetery, where a standard CWGC headstone marks his grave.
It would appear that Albert’s widow re-married in 1921, in Cardiff, to a bricklayer named Lionel Ricketts Grant and that prior to emigrating to Australia in 1922 the couple lived at 107 Cecil Road, Gloucester.
Researched by Graham Adams 5 January 2020