With it being Remembrance weekend, I decided to write about an unsung hero of WW1, my husband’s grandfather, Alexander Herd. Alexander was born at Rock Cottage, Panbride, a small village outside Carnoustie on the east coast of Scotland on 3rd July 1899, he was the second child of six of William and Williamina Herd, William was a baker but came from a long line of fishermen.
last time I shared this post about Alexander Herd, I knew very little about his life in Panbride and Dundee, but since then, the 1921 census has been published, and I found Alexander, back in Dundee.
Alexander must have left school very young and become a seaman, this made sense as he came from a long line of fishermen and seamen. I found entries in a Post Office Directory for Dundee which showed his father, a baker and Alexander himself, a seaman, living in Tay Street, Dundee. I( have written to the Archives Office in Dundee to find out some more information about Alexander's life as a teenage seaman.
When he’d only just turned 15, in September 1914, he joined the Royal Field Artillery and was a gunner. His address at that point was given as 9 Cardean Street, Dundee which was his parents address.
Sometime between then and 1917 he must have been billeted in Ipswich, Suffolk, perhaps before going to Harwich or some other location to cross the Channel to France, he met Rose Everett, an Ipswich girl, and they married in St Clements Church, Ipswich on 20th November 1917. They were both only 18 although Alexander Herd put “21” on the marriage certificate, and that he was a soldier. They were registered as living at 1 Rope Walk Place, Ipswich, other addresses Alexander and Rose were registered at were 9 Cardigan St., Ipswich and 41 Borough Rd., Ipswich. After the wedding Alexander would have had to go to the front line to fight.
Alexander and Rose’s first child, Violet Louvain Herd arrived in March 1918, and
at some point Rose Herd settled at 7 Dickens Road, Ipswich.
On the 11th July 1918, Alexander Herd was reported wounded in the War Office daily list number 5615. On some paperwork it says “GSW ankle” which I found out means “gunshot wound ankle.”
Alexander and Rose Herd's second child, Alexander Frederick Herd was born in Oct 1919 in Ipswich. In the 1921 census I had found that Rose Herd, was living with her parents, Henry and Jane Alice Everett at 1 Rope Walk Place, Rose, aged 21 was working as a pea picker and had 2 infant children, as well as her parents, Rose's three younger siblings were in the household which had only 3 rooms, but where was Rose's husband, Alexander? the war was over, he should have been back in Ipswich.
Alexander Herd was living at The Sailor's Home, 62 Dock Street, Dundee, he was working as a watchmaker in a government run instructional factory in Carolina Road, Dundee. I discovered that after WW1 about 60 of these factories were set up for disabled service men, and there were many Scotsmen of all ages living in the Sailor's Home, some were seamen and others like Alexander were working elsewhere. Perhaps this was the only opportunity open to Alexander now that he was disabled, and he had a Scottish war pension.
At some point around 1923 or 1924 he came back to Ipswich, his war pension was transferred from Scotland to Ipswich, he was wheelchair bound, and it looks like he had lost half a leg, but he managed to pick up work as a nightwatchman for Ipswich Corporation, because he could do this in a chair.
He was entitled to wear a “wound stripe”. This was 2” stripe of gold Russian braid which he would have been entitled to sew onto the left sleeve of his service jacket.
This photo is the only known photo of Alexander Herd, he must only have been in his 30’s but he looks like an old man. It’s obvious from this photo that his war experiences in the trenches wrecked his life.
Three more children followed, William Alexander in April 1927, Frederick Charles (Peter’s Dad) in Aug 1929 and Renee Dorothy (Dolly) in 1931.
The parallels with Peter's Dad, Frederick Charles are fascinating, because he also left school very young and went to sea.
Alexander Brown Herd died on 13th October 1937, at the age of only 38, of pulmonary tuberculosis (which would have been rife in the trenches in WW1) at his home in Dickens Road, Ipswich, leaving Rose on her own with 5 growing children and a war pension to survive with. Alexander was buried in Ipswich Cemetery but there is no stone to mark his grave. About five years ago I contacted the cemetery and Peter, and I found the precise spot where he was buried.
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