Pte 41320 Albert Edward Barlow

Albert Edward Barlow was born in Lower Broughton, Salford in 1888, the son of James Barlow and his wife Sarah (nee Dalton), who married 1885 in Salford Ascension. He was baptised on the 15th August 1888 at the Chapelry of St. Clement, Ordsall-in-Salford.

On the 1891 Census the family are living at 28 St Simon Street, Salford. His father, James, is aged 35, a cab driver born in Manchester, his mother Sarah aged 30, a ? cutter born in Newton Heath. They have two children; Albert Ed. is aged 3 born in Lower Broughton, Ernest is 1 and was also born in Lower Broughton. They have a lodger Elizabeth Hamblet aged 23.

His father, James, died in 1901, aged 46.

On the 1901 Census the family have moved to Chapel Street, Salford. His widowed mother, Sarah, is aged 40, and a herbalist manageress. She has three children; Albert 13 is a shop boy, Ernest is 11 and Joseph is 8.

His mother remarried to James Allen in 1902

Albert married Ada Thomas in St. Bartholomew, Salford, in 1909 and their daughter Annie was born on 15th March 1911.

 

The 1911 Census finds Albert and his family at 7 Dorset Street, Salford. Albert, 24, is head of household, and employed as a boot shop manager.  Ada is 25 and thier child Annie is an infant.  Also in the household is his mother, Sarah Barlow Allen, 50, married, employed as a cap finisher, and his brother Joseph, 18, a clerk with the ship canal. Also David Allen, her son, aged 8. Sarah states she had been married 26 years and had five children, one of whom died. However, her husband James Allen is not in the household.
 

Another daughter Gladys was born to Ada and Albert on 06th October 1915.

He enlisted in Salford, the amount of the War Gratuity suggests that he served for 22 months, enlisting or being conscripted in about May 1916.  He  was serving in  ‘A’ Company, 1st Platoon of the 17^th Battalion, The King’s Liverpool Regiment as Private No 41320 when he was killed in action on the 28^th March 1918, aged 30, during the German Spring Offensive.

The Battalion diary gives an insight into the events of the day:

28^th March 1918

FOLIES – MEZIERES – ROUVREL

10.00am Enemy attacked our immediate front but was driven off – Half an hour later enemy was seen in large numbers through ROUVROY to WARVILLERS. About 11 am orders were received that the Battalion would be relieved by 133^rd French Division. The relief was carried out shortly after noon, after a message had been received by telephone that the French were satisfied with the position and that we were to withdraw at once.  

4pm The enemy were then in BEAUFORT. The Battalion assembled at MEZIERES and marched to ROUVREL to billets arriving about 6.30pm.

He was reported missing in the Weekly Casualty List on the 28th May 1918:

- King's (Liverpool Regiment) Barlow 41320 A.E. (Salford);

Albert's body was not recovered or was subsequently lost as he has no known grave and is commemorated on the Pozieres Memorial in France.

The POZIERES MEMORIAL relates to the period of crisis in March and April 1918 when the Allied Fifth Army was driven back by overwhelming numbers across the former Somme battlefields, and the months that followed before the Advance to Victory, which began on 8 August 1918. The Memorial commemorates over 14,000 casualties of the United Kingdom and 300 of the South African Forces who have no known grave and who died on the Somme from 21 March to 7 August 1918.

The cemetery and memorial were designed by W.H. Cowlishaw, with sculpture by Laurence A. Turner. The memorial was unveiled by Sir Horace Smith-Dorrien on 4 August 1930. 

Albert was originally declared Missing on 28th March 1918. His wife, Ada, contacted the International Red Cross but received a response dated 29th May 1918 that they held no information.  A further enquiry after the war also met with a negative reply on 29th January 1919.

 

Nine months after his disappearance, on 17th December 1918, his wife Ada, at 94 Brighton Street, appealed for information in the Manchester Evening News. His death was later presumed, for official purposes, to have occurred on 28th March 1918.

 

His daughters were 7 and 2 years old when Albert was killed.  Ada received his Army effects and a War Gratuity of £10.  The pension card, in Ada’s name, living at 94 Brighton Street, Salford, shows she received a pension of £1-5s-5d a week from November 1918, increased to £2-4s-2d two years later.  His family later moved to 44 Clement Street, Salford.

 

Ada never remarried.  In 1939 on the outbreak of war, she is living at 24 Crawford Avenue, Stretford, with daughters Annie and Gladys and her husband. Annie is a cotton winder and Gladys a box maker.  Ada died in 1967 aged 81.

Albert's mother died in 1917, aged 55.

Grateful thanks are extended to FamilySearch.org for the photograph of Albert Edward.