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Alfred StaplehurstAlfred Staplehurst was born to Henry, a farm labourer, and Ruth Staplehurst at Little Horsted, Sussex, in 1881. By 1901 Alfred was a chicken crammer. He married Annie Maria Hammond in 1906, and it was presumably work that brought them to Gloucestershire, for Alfred was employed as a poultryman at Churchdown in 1911. A move to Frampton followed, where he was recorded on the 1915 electoral register living on The Green. Alfred enlisted into ‘Lord Kitchener's Army’ (ie, the New Army) on 27 November 1914 and was posted to the Gloucestershire Regiment. After training he embarked with the 7th (Service) Battalion at Avonmouth, landing first at Alexandria, and entering the Balkans theatre on 19 June 1915, probably at Mudros, on the Greek island of Lemnos. The next month they were deployed to Gallipoli, to be immediately involved in the aftermath of the Battle of Gully Ravine. They were located at Geoghan's Bluff. Owing to the very cramped area held at Cape Helles (only about four miles long) there was no place of safety, and the unit diaries record that casualties were suffered on 19 July (four wounded), 20 July (one killed, four wounded), 22 July (three wounded) and, in repelling a Turkish attack, on 23 July (two killed, one wounded). One of these casualties was almost certainly Private Alfred Staplehurst who died on 23 July of wounds received. Although he has no known grave, Alfred's body may have been one of the 925 re-interred from Geoghan's Bluff cemetery to that at Cape Helles, Turkey, where he is commemorated at the CWGC Helles Memorial. His ultimate sacrifice is also remembered in Frampton on the war memorial and on the village hall plaque. He was posthumously awarded the 1914-15 Star, British War Medal and Victory Medal. |