12th Battalion, Somerset Light Infantry
Although Private Trott died in Westbury-on-Severn, is buried there, is remembered on the village war memorial, and was the given address of his widow shortly after the end of the war, his connection with the village seems somewhat transient.
Alfred Arthur Trott was born in Crewkerne, Somerset in 1881, son of George Trott, an agricultural labourer, and Alice A (formerly Sibley).
In 1891 the family was living at Broadwinsor, Dorset but by 1904 he had returned to Crewkerne where he married Florence Amelia Ann Phillips (1883-1967). There were four sons of the marriage.
In 1911 he and his family were living at 51 Victoria Road, Aberavon where he was employed as a bricklayer’s labourer. Alfred was apparently still living in South Wales during the early period of the war as he enlisted at Newport, Monmouthshire as Private 43732, Cheshire Regiment.
He later transferred to 12th Battalion, Somerset Light Infantry with which he served in France and therefore being issued the British War Medal and Victory Medal.
Private Alfred Arthur Trott died at The Strand, Westbury-on-Severn on 13 December 1918, aged
38 years, of pneumonia and bronchitis contracted on active service and was buried in Westbury on Severn (St Peter and St Paul) churchyard, where a standard CWGC headstone marks his grave. He is commemorated on the Roll of Honour inside the church.
His widow remarried in 1920, in Yeovil, Somerset, to one George Hallett.
Research by Eric Nicholls February 2020