26 Mar 2023
Fifteen men from one small St Albans street who gave their lives during the Great War will finally receive the recognition they deserve.
Despite the sacrifices made by residents of King’s Road, they were not honoured with a war memorial because the street did not form part of the Abbey parish.
But now, just over a century since the guns fell silent on the battlefields of the First World War, their lives have been remembered by contemporary residents.
Those who died were aged between 16 and 38, three were brothers, and their occupations included a cowman, a sawyer on the Gorhambury Estate, a boot factory worker, a butcher’s assistant, a sawyer and a gardener. At least two had attended St Michael’s School.
The story of these tragic heroes was meticulously researched by neighbours Judy Sutton and Helen Little, based on earlier work by Ann Dean, alongside a wider history of the street, with proceeds from the sale of their book ‘King’s Road: for King and Country’ going towards paying for the memorial.
After leafing through old newspapers and archives, obtaining advice from local and national bodies, and seeking help from relatives of the deceased, Judy and Helen’s book was eventually published in 2021 – the event marked with a special celebration in the street.
Judy said she was inspired to investigate the role King’s Road played in the Great War back in 2018, when the country honoured the centenary of the Armistice. Meanwhile, one of Helen’s great-grandfathers had been killed at the Somme, not knowing he had left a daughter, and she resolved to ensure the men of her street were not forgotten by subsequent generations.
Judy said: “Fifteen homes were sacrificed from the 67 homes in our street. That may well be the largest loss of life – at least in percentage terms – from any street in St Albans.
“More than 100 years later it is difficult to speculate on the impact of the Great War on the residents of King’s Road… We believe that it is now time for [the street] to have its own memorial using modern materials and a contemporary design. We chose to include all those who died while serving their country in the Great War whose family lived in King’s Road during this time.”
One of those families, the Harts, lost three out of “Four Fighting Brothers” as they were referred to in media reports of the time: Henry, Ernest and Philip (known as William), with their sibling Albert surviving.
One of their great-nephews said in the book: “There were six boys in total in the family and five went to war but only two came back. My grandfather was the youngest and was too young to join at the start of the war, but on his birthday (following the death of his closest brother), he went and signed-up. On hearing the news, his mother went to the conscription office and successfully demanded back the papers saying, ‘you’re not taking another one of my sons’.”
The street’s youngest recruit was 16-year-old John Coleman, who served as a drummer boy to the Duke of Bedford’s Private Band.
He died from pneumonia following influenza on October 24 1918, just a matter of weeks before the end of the conflict, having only enlisted the previous Easter.
A former pupil of the Abbey School, who worked in Messrs Johnson’s straw hat factory in Dagnall Street, he is buried in Soldiers’ Corner at Hatfield Road Cemetery.
The Kings Road Memorial Committee have now reached the end of their five year fundraising project and will soon be erecting a memorial at the end of the street in honour of the fallen fifteen, especially designed by artist Renato Niemis who also designed the RAF memorial at Duxford.
It will be unveiled on Saturday May 13 as part of a street party attended by local dignitaries, including MP Daisy Cooper and councillors, the designer, authors of the book, relatives of the young men, army personnel and standards via the Ministry of Defence, and most importantly members of the local community
They will all be coming together to celebrate the memories of these young men who never returned from the Front during the course of “the war to end all wars”.
