267466 Cpl Alfred Brown from Retford was killed in action
A well known and highly esteemed member of the Retford Territorial Company was killed in action last month in the person of Sergt Alfred Brown, 31, Diamond Jubilee Terrace, Ordsall who had only been in France nine weeks. He was 35 years of age.
He joined the Volunteer Company in 1898 and in 1911 rose to the rank of Sergeant. He was mobilised at the outbreak of the war with the 8th Sherwood Foresters and trained recruits of the Regiment at Newark. He was musketry instructor at Belton Park, Grantham and was instructing snipers on Cannock Chase during the whole of 1916 when the school broke up. Then Sergt Brown went to train recruits at Saltfleet until going to France on June 26th last as instructor of sniping and was later transferred to another Regiment.
Great sympathy is felt for the widow who is left with three children. Captain K Hills Bond wrote as under to Mrs Brown:-
“It is with the very deepest regret that I have to inform you of your husband’s death for I know of the grief that this letter will bring to you. I feel so helpless to do anything even to console you in your great sorrow…..he was killed quite instantaneously by a shell striking the side of the trench where he was standing and I am sure that he felt no pain at all”.
[Retford Times 14 Sept 1917]
See here for full biography
Derbyshire Territorials in the Great War 