Ben SHEPHERD

26346, Private. b. 1871, Clayton d. Sat. 31st March 1917 (aged 46).

A native to Clayton, Ben’s parents lived at Town Bottom although Ben had not seen them for many years. The reason for this was that Ben emigrated to America in the early 1900’s and so consequently was in the States at the outbreak of the conflict. According to the 1901 census he was still living in the village and working as a wool warp dresser but the Bradford press indicated it wasn’t long after this that he moved.

It did not take him long to make a decision as to whether to fight for his old country, however, as he had sailed back across the Atlantic by the middle of 1915 and joined up into the Duke of Wellington’s Regiment in Halifax.

Ben was another man to lie about his age – his army records show he should be 36 when he enlisted but in actual fact he was 43!

The cut off point was 39 but having travelled half-way around the world Ben was not to be dissuaded.

After four months of training with this unit he was dispatched to France where he was reassigned to the 2nd Battalion, Loyal North Lancashire Regiment. His time in the trenches was short though, as by the middle of 1916 the battalion was taken out of active duties on the Western Front and sent out to the Middle East. The chances of survival out there were far more preferable to death in the trenches, although the greatest chance of dying was due to disease from poor hygiene conditions.
Throughout the First World War the British Army maintained a constant presence in Egypt primarily to ensure the security of the Suez Canal – if this was ever captured many British supply lines would have been severed. It additionally allowed the army to have a base of operations in the Middle East where troops could be deployed from to a large number of other locations.

Ben’s unit was stationed in Egypt, as well as doing a stint in late 1916 fighting the Germans in East Africa. Upon their return to Egypt however, Ben became ill due to the poor sanitary conditions and died several weeks later in a hospital in Alexandria.

Ben is buried at Cairo War Cemetery, Cairo, Egypt.