Alfred GARROD

Gunner. b. 1888, Leeds

Unlike all the other First World War casualties in Clayton there is no official record of Alfred dying in the war, but the Bradford Roll of Honour does list an Alfred Garrod living at 60, Woodland Road, Clayton Heights. He enlisted on the 2nd May 1918 into the Royal Garrison Artillery, but there is no record of him being either injured or killed in records.

This could mean that he was wounded whilst on war service but was discharged before he the injury finally killed him. Many soldiers returned home from the front suffering from debilitating injuries that they had received during the hostilities – the most common were loss of limbs, gas poisoning or sometimes shell shock.

The army responded by discharging these men back into civilian life and some of these men could not cope. As a rule, the army only commemorated those men who died in the line of duty, or those who were still on ‘active service’ (i.e. they had not been discharged). Therefore, if a man were to die after discharge, for example of residual gas poisoning, his family would not be eligible for a war grave. Until further information becomes available, this unknown soldier’s life and story will remain shrouded in mystery and only time will tell if we will ever learn the whole truth.

It is also worth noting that the army records offices were bombed during the Blitz in World War II and consequently only forty percent of the soldier’s records from the Great War survived. As far as unofficial sources go, the Bradford press often had pieces about missing or dead soldiers, but again Garrod is not mentioned.

The Bradford Roll of Honour itself is a document that consists of a total of 36,625 names of the men of Bradford who served in the Great War. When completed in 1921 it contained the vast majority of the serving populous, but admits that omissions may still be present as it was up to families to return the relevant paperwork. For example, John Worsnop is not included in this document, but it is a well established fact he was killed and served in the army. Within the Roll of Honour it additionally gives the names of 5,243 men who were either killed or died of wounds whilst serving in the Army and whom resided in Bradford.

The author is in process of updating this page and his further research may add more to this mans story.