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WORLD WAR ONE

The Men Who Died

WORLD WAR ONE

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Lance Corporal Albert Lewis Harding

Oxford and Bucks Light Infantry. 7th Btn., service no. 22867

Killed in Action in Salonika, Greece on April 25th, 1917,

aged 29

Buried at Doiran, Kilkis, Greece. Commemorated at Doiran

Memorial, Greece

Eustace was born in Bath, Somerset in 1897. His father, later a widower, was in Bristol. In the 1901 census, aged 3, Eustace is at 75, Lawn Road, Bristol, a visitor with Mary Jane Harding, a widow and her son Leonard Jeffrey Harding, 22. By 1911 Eustace was in Brecon, at 4, Harp Terrace, boarding with Jane Campion and her daughter Clare; he is still at school. Jane is the mother of Charles Guest Campion who also features in this book¹². By 1914 he was a dental mechanic at 5, The Bulwark, Brecon. Eustace joined the South Wales Borderers, 1st Brecknocks in Brecon on September 2nd, 1914 and transferred to the Monmouthshire Regiment in the late July 1916, before crossing to France. In August 1916 shortly after arriving, he was hospitalised through illness at Boulogne before moving to hospitals at Le Havre and then Rouen. He rejoined his battalion on September 9th, 1916. Eustace had another two weeks in hospital through sickness in early June 1917, rejoining his Battalion on June 15th. He died in action on 1st July 1917.

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See page 35

Albert was born in Brecon in May 1886 to John and Mary Ann Harding of 46a, Free Street, Brecon, and was baptised at St Mary's Church in June of that year. His father was a railway foreman and porter.

By 1901 the family have moved to 26, Free Street and Albert is also working for the railway, having joined the Midland Railway as a junior clerk in 1900. He moved with the railway to Leicester in 1907, and then onto Bourneville in 1909. In 1911 he is still single and a boarder in Kings Norton, Birmingham, while still working as a railway clerk.

He enlists in Birmingham and gives Brecon as his residential address. He is initially a private with the 3rd Reserve Battalion of the Oxford and Bucks Light Infantry before later transferring to the 7th Battalion.

The Battalion was formed in 1914 and landed in France in September 1915, before going to Salonika in November of that year. Albert was initially listed as missing, but later confirmed as Killed in Action. He died in the first battle of Doiran.

Private Eustace William Harding

Monmouthshire Regiment (Territorial Force) 2nd Battalion,

service no. 267467

Killed in action 1st July 1917, aged 19

Bard Cot Cemetery, grave ref. II.I.3