Herbert Edwards

Home page

Appears as:

Born:

Parents:

Unit:

No.:

Rank:

Died:

Grave/Memorial:  		Edwards, H

18 October 1883, Chalfont St Giles, Buckinghamshire

William and Sarah (née Heath)

7th Battalion, The Queen's (Royal West Surrey) Regiment

4472

Corporal

13 July 1916, France, age 32

Bernafay Wood British Cemetery, Montauban, France, grave M. 84 		   

Herbert Edwards was born, on 18 October 1883, at Chalfont St Giles, Buckinghamshire. He was the son and eldest child of nine
(surviving) children of William, a bricklayer, and Sarah (née Heath).

After leaving school, Herbert was an under gardener (domestic). He married Leah Morgan at Dartford, Kent in 1907. By the time
of the 1911 census, Herbert had moved to Woking and was working as a gardener at a house on Hook Heath. They had two sons.

Herbert served with the 7th Battalion of The Queen's (Royal West Surrey) Regiment.

Herbert Edwards was killed on 13 July 1916, France, during the Battle of the Somme. He is buried in grave M 84 within the
Bernafay Wood British Cemetery, Montauban, France.




Montauban village was taken by the 30th and 18th Divisions on 1 July 1916 and it
remained in Commonwealth hands until the end of March 1918. It was retaken on
25 August 1918.

The cemetery, designed by Sir Herbert Baker, was begun by a dressing station in
August 1916 and used as a front-line cemetery until the following April. It contained,
at the Armistice, 284 burials but was then increased when graves were brought in
from Bernafay Wood North Cemetery and from the battlefields immediately east of
the wood.

Bernafay Wood British Cemetery now contains 945 burials and commemorations
of the First World War. 417 of the burials are unidentified but there are special
memorials to 11 soldiers known or believed to be buried here.