Ashby, Edward Alexander

Ashby, Edward Alexander DCM

Military History:

Regiment:                               Bedfordshire Yeomanry

Rank:                                      Trooper

Service Number:                    30145 (previously 874)

Date of Enlisting:                   17.3.1913

Date of death:                        Not known

Cemetery/ Memorial:            Not known

UK Cemetery/Memorial:       St Mary’s Church Ashwell Roll of Honour

Edward enlisted on 17th March 1913 with the Bedfordshire Yeomanry and was a private with the Lancers (Regimental Number 874).  At the outbreak of War he was given the Regimental Number 30145 and was mobilised for France with the 1/1st Bedfordshire Yeomanry Territorial Force. On 12 June 1915 it joined the 9th Cavalry Brigade, 1st Cavalry Division in France. As such it was one of only six yeomanry regiments to be posted to a regular cavalry division in the war. Edward fought in the Battle of the Somme, Battle of Cambrai and the Hundred Days Offensive.   Edward survived the war.

Edward earned the Distinguished Conduct Medal for conspicuous gallantry and devotion to duty during the last four years. ‘During recent engagements in the Battle of the Somme, three horses held by him had been wounded and on 23rd March, near Potte, his horse was wounded and he himself was hit in the thigh by a splinter of a shell. Regardless of his own wound, he assisted in tending the men and horses which had become casualties, and only reported his own wound when he had brought his horse back.’  He was awarded the 1915 Star, the British War Medal and the Victory Medal.

He is commemorated on the St Mary’s Church Ashwell Roll of Honour.

It is not known when Edward died.

Family History:

Date of Birth:                c1886

Birth Place:                   Harston, Cambridgeshire

Residence:                    Ashwell, Hertfordshire

Marriage:                      3rd quarter 1908

Edward was the second son of Edward Smith Ashby and Agnes Selina (nee Woodcock) Ashby, born in Harston, Cambridgeshire in 1886. He was a pupil at the Merchant Taylors School in Ashwell, Hertfordshire.

Before enlisting he was a domestic coachman living in Swan Street, Ashwell.

Edward married Emily Elizabeth Gautrey in the third quarter of 1908.  They had one child, Jack, born in Ashwell in the third quarter of 1909.

It is not known when Edward died.

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