19th Company, Royal Army Medical Corps
Alfred Frederick Hamblett was born at Gloucester in 1891, the son of Joseph and Eliza Hamblett.
Finding details about him from census returns has proved difficult but ‘family tree’ information published on Ancestry, posted by what appears to be the Hamblett family, is more than likely accurate.
Alfred was one of at least six children and he is likely to have been the eldest. In 1901 the family lived at 34 Leonard Road and in 1911 at 37 Tarrington Road, both in the Tredworth area of Gloucester.
At the time of the latter census Alfred was a butcher’s assistant. Joseph Hamblett died in 1909.
No Army Service or Pension Record papers have survived for Alfred but we can put together some details of his service from various records that have survived.
His Medal Index Card states that he served with three separate entities, the Norfolk Regiment (number 32184), the East Surrey Regiment (26043) and finally with 19 Company, Royal Army Medical Corps (134973).
He was discharged from the Army due to sickness on 20 September 1918 aged 28 years 11 months and was awarded a Silver War Badge, to denote discharge from military service. The record for this states that he served from 20 October 1915 and went overseas.
Recently, Army Pension Record cards were released to the public, through Ancestry and Alfred’s states that the cause of his discharge was tuberculosis, attributable to military service.
He was awarded a pension backdated to the day following discharge but unfortunately he died on 5 July1920, aged 30, before he could feel the real benefit of this.
A ‘memoriam notice’ placed in the Gloucester Citizen exactly a year after his death contains the verse ‘we saw him fade away’, implying that the cause of death was the result of his tuberculosis. The notice states that he was remembered by his mother, sister and brothers and fiancée May Clutterbuck.
Alfred Hamblett was buried in Gloucester Old Cemetery, where a standard Commonwealth War Grave Commission headstone marks his grave.
Two of Daniel’s brothers also feature in the CWGC records. Melville Augustus (born 1899) was killed in action on 5 August 1918, whilst serving, as a private, with the 8th Battalion, Berkshire Regiment (number 44612): he has no known grave and is commemorated on the Vis-en-Artois Memorial to the Missing.
Daniel James, born in 1896 joined ‘A’ Supply Company, Army Service Corps as a private (number S/36709) but his career lasted only 63 days, before he succumbed to pneumonia at Connaught Hospital, Aldershot, on 5 July 1920; he was 30 years old. He is buried in a plot along with his father in Gloucester Old Cemetery.
Researched by Graham Adams 12 June 2019