Granville AMBLER

235070, Serjeant. b. 1878, Clayton d. 16th May 1917 (aged 39).

An experienced soldier, Granville joined the Scots Guards and served in the Boer War which ran from 1899 to 1902 and had seen action for eighteen months in 1901 and 1902 before returning back to civilian life. The 1911 census shows Granville’s occupation as a Police Constable, married to Ada and with a young son, Harry Ambler.

Granville was brought up on Low Lane in Clayton. His father Henry his mother Tamar and elder brother Horatio Nelson and sister Adolpha. His father worked at the gas works on Low Lane as a mains layer and gas fitter. 1n 1891, Aged 13 Granvilles occupation is listed as a Gardener.

Granville maintained an active roll within the military and for the next fourteen years he was one of the main drill instructors for the city’s volunteer (and later territorial) force and was also a respected member of Bradford City Police Force.

When war was declared in 1914 he was mobilised with all the other territorial troops but instead of being sent to France with them was held back and ‘given’ to the 10th West Yorkshire’s, a newly raised service battalion in York. The reason for this would have been his experience in training raw recruits – most soldiers with any experience were sent straight overseas but the government saw the need to share a few experienced ones with the new army units so that they could actually train the men efficiently.

Granville went to France in July 1915 and fought there until the time of his death nearly two years later. Although Granville’s father Harry still lived in Shipley it is unknown whether his wife Ada and their child still lived in Clayton, as by 1921 when the Commonwealth War Graves Commission had collated all their information, Ada had remarried and was living in Princes Park, Liverpool.

Ada contacted the Bradford Daily Telegraph and asked that part of the letter from Granville’s officer be published. It read:
“We were holding an advanced trench and it was very heavily bombarded by the enemy, a shell exploded on the parapet near your husband killing him instantaneously. He was one of my best sergeants, respected and esteemed by our officers, brother sergeants and men, particularly those who were in his platoon. Accept my deepest and most heartfelt sympathies.”.

Granville is remembered on the Arras Memorial, Arras, France.