Alice's Research.

I like to encourage children and young peoples interest in history.

 Alice is the daughter of a friend of mine, she was given a postcard by a mutual friend of her dads and mine Clive Stewart. The postcard was sent in 1915 from Albert Holman to his mother, 14 months later he would be killed during the battle of the Somme. The following is the research completed by Alice.

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 ALBERT EDWARD Holman, his family.

Albert's parents were John Holman (b1858) June QTR, East Grinstead and Matilda Caroline Stanford (b 1857) March Qtr Maidstone. They got married September Qtr 1888 in Croydon.

They had at least 5 children that can so far be traced. All the children were born in Worth Sussex.

Louisa (b 1891)

ALBERT (b 1893)

Kate    (b 1894)

Robin   (b 1899)

Grace   (b 1900)

ALBERT'S dad John,his occupation as shown in the census's of 1901 and 1891 was a gamekeeper. Before that, as shown on the 1881 census he was a carpenter.

World War I started in August 1914 and ended in November 1918. Albert joined the Royal Sussex Regiment as a private, serial number (SD/680). He died on 03-Sept-1916 during the later stages of the Battlef the Somme, he was just 23 years old. Albert has no known grave (his body was destroyed or lost, during the continuing battle). He is commemorated on pier and face 7C of the Thiepval Memorial to The Missing, there are 73,137 names on the memorial, including AlLBERT's all those names have no known grave. Thiepval is a small village in the Somme region of Northern France that was completely destroyed during World War I, it has only been partially rebuilt since then and is much smaller than it was before the war.

Picture courtesy of the Commonwealth War Graves Commission.

I do not at the moment know, when ALBERT enlisted (joined) the Army, but I have a postcard that he wrote to his mom while he was at army training camp in Maidstone in Kent. The postcard was posted on 28-Jul-1915. Albert was killed just over 14 months after writing and posting that postcard.

ALBERT wrote the postcard in pencil and in places it is quite faint and difficult to read, the postcard is after all 92 years old. After looking at the writing with a magnifying glass, the following is what I think it says.

" My Dear Mother am still alive and kicking, after a fashion. I don't like this place much. Thank you so much for cakes. I think they were the means of saving my life last week. Our grub is not up to much, but better than it was. I am still A1, but we are always getting wet, this is a place for storms, we get one every day. Excuse............as am very busy. I think K (Kitchener) is coming down here next week. Give love to all also Andy. Love Bert "

In the census's of 1891 and 1901 the family were living at Mount Noddy in Worth Sussex.

According to the Commonwealth War Graves Commission, the family were still living there in the early 1920's