43001 CORPORAL EDWARD H.F. LAMBERT
‘A’ COMPANY 7TH (SERVICE) BATTALION
SUFFOLK REGIMENT
KILLED IN ACTION
12TH OCTOBER 1916
AGE 19 YEARS
EDWARD’S NAME ON THE THIEPVAL MEMORIAL
Another young Halesworth lad who sadly lost his life during his teenage years was Edward Henry Frederick Lambert, who had been born in the town during the second quarter of 1897, the second child of Laura (née Harvey) and Frederick, who at the time of his son’s birth ran the local tobacconist’s shop at 54 Thoroughfare, as well as having some investments in the local wherry boats. These, at that time, would ply their trade in transporting goods on the river Blyth between Halesworth and Southwold for onward passage to London etc. On reaching school age Edward attended the boy’s school then situated in Holton Road, where he appeared to have been a very bright student, as the Halesworth Times newspaper of 9th July 1907, reporting on the East Suffolk Schools Prize Scheme, that listed Edward as having received two commendations for the quality of his handwriting and pencil drawings. While away from school he had become a keen member of the Church Lads Brigade, no doubt encouraged by his father, Frederick, who, after many years serving in the town’s Volunteer Rifle Corps, was now the Sergeant Major of the Lads Brigade. On leaving school around 1910 (an indication of how well Edward had done while receiving his education) he was fortunate in obtaining the position of a law clerk with one of the town’s solicitor’s practices.
On the outbreak of the Great War in August 1914, Frederick, who had enlisted into the Veterans National Reserve on its formation in 1910, immediately stepped forward to take on the role of the recruiting Colour Sergeant for the district, offering the use of his shop, from where he would travel out to many of the local villages encouraging men to enlist into the Forces of the King (see advertisement below). The Halesworth Times of 6th October 1914 reported that during the previous week Sergeant Lambert had recruited a further twenty-two men to serve in the army, one of them being his own son, Edward, who joined originally to serve as 1800 a Private Soldier in the local Territorials of ‘F’ Company, the 4th Battalion Suffolk Regiment. At the time of his enlistment the battalion was in the process of splitting into two separate formations, with what become known as the 1/4th Battalion being made up of those men who had volunteered to serve overseas and were in the process of preparing to cross to France to take on the ‘Hun’, with the remaining men, who had not signed the Imperial Service pledge, becoming the 2/4th Battalion, committing them to serve under their original terms of service being that of purely home defence, while at the same time taking on a secondary role of training new recruits, who were volunteering in their thousands. Due to Edward’s young age of seventeen, after having completed his training he would have been held back from joining his Regiment in the field, until reaching the age of nineteen, which at that time remained the minimum official age for a soldier to serve in the firing line.
In an article published in the Halesworth Times of 31st October 1916, in which Edward’s death was announced, it was confirmed that he had been sent out to France in mid-July 1916 to join the 7th (Service) Battalion, Suffolk Regiment, no doubt as a casualty replacement after their losses earlier in the month when, during the opening phase of the Battle of the Somme, on 3rd July alone they had suffered over four hundred and fifty casualties in dead, wounded and missing. With the new service number of 43001 he had joined the 7th Suffolks having already received promotion to the rank of a full Corporal which, at such a young age, bears testament to how highly regarded he must have been held by those Officers he had served under. On his and his fellow replacements joining the battalion they remained in the forward area of the Somme front where over the next few months, they would continue to move in and out of the front line: that is up to 27th September, when many of the Suffolk lads would receive a totally new experience as they were transported by a number of pre-war London buses from the Arras sector to a rear area around the French village of Brévillers. Within days they had once more moved forward to the area of line near the commune of Fleurs-Courcelette, arriving on 10th October, in preparation for an attack, alongside their close county comrades from the 7th (Service) Battalion, Norfolk Regiment, on to the German front line positions leading to Gueudecourt Wood. On the build-up to the attacks and during the hours of darkness they relieved the 11th Battalion, Middlesex Regiment from the trenches known as Bulls Run. Edward, now serving in ‘A’ Company under the command of Lieutenant L Bowden would be on the right of the Battalion’s advance. As the men prepared themselves ‘to go over the top’, the German artillery began to shell the Suffolks’ trenches, causing one section to collapse, killing and injuring several men. Before daylight on the morning of the attack, 12th October, a number of men from the battalion’s leading platoons quietly climbed from their trench and stealthily moved forward to lie out of sight in shell holes, these being closer to the Germans front line, in the hope of taking the enemy by surprise. Zero hour was timed to begin at 2.00pm, which would have caused those men lying in damp muddy holes several hours of discomfort before the assault would finally begin.
Information taken from both the 7th Suffolks’ official war diary and the Regimental History, published in 1928, shows that the attack began exactly on time but sadly turned out to be a complete failure. When the men jumped up from the confines of their shell holes or climbed over the parapet of the front line trench they were met with a fusillade of machine gun fire which cut many of them down in seconds, while those who managed to reach the German barbed wire entanglements could not find a way through as gaps that should have been blown by the British artillery did not exist. Some minor gains were made by D and B companies who were on the opposite side of the battalion’s advance but Edward and his ‘A’ company made very little if any headway. Within a very short time the attack had been called off with the remnants of the 7th Suffolks withdrawing to their own line, where it was later found that the battalion’s losses for that day amounted to in excess of five hundred in killed and wounded. Of the fourteen officers who led their troops into action that day eleven were killed with the remainder, including Edward’s officer Lieutenant Bowden, receiving wounds. What happened to young Lambert is not known. His body was never identified and today he is remembered, with another seventy-two thousand, three hundred and thirty-six others, on the Thiepval Memorial to the missing, located in the Somme region of France.
On hearing of the loss of their young son, Laura and his father must have been devastated, particularly Frederick as he had been the one who had recruited Edward so had therefore sent him off to war to die in a foreign field.
During the aftermath of the Great War not only were those who had paid the ultimate sacrifice remembered on War Memorials the length and breath of the country, but many organisations produced memorial books to remember those who they had lost. One such register is that published by the Central Council of Church Bell Ringers in which Edward is remembered, listed under the Dioceses of Norwich, where he had been under the direction of his father, a member of the bell ringers of Saint Mary’s Church, Halesworth.
Originally posted as missing in action, Edward’s death was officially accepted from 6th November 1918, for which his mother Laura received a pension of 5s.0d (25p) per week, rising to 6s.6d (33p) from 18th January 1919. Why this should have been is not known as his father was not a poor man. On 15th November 1919 Frederick received the second and final gratuity for his son’s life, totalling £15.17s.11d (£15.90p).
His parents would also be entitled to claim Edward’s medal entitlement of the British War and Victory medal pair with his named bronze memorial plaque and scroll.
The location of these is not known.
Postcard from 1917 of Colour Sergeant F Lambert (with sword)
and what is described on the rear of the card as the
Halesworth Home Battalion Serving Men
NATIONAL RESERVE
AS WORN BY FREDERICK