Bertie William Adcock

Born: 10 February 1893

Died: 15 November 1916

Rank and Regiment: Private 9007 1st and 4th Battalion of the Northumberland Fusiliers (formerly 3521 of The Norfolk Regiment).

Resting Place: body unrecovered.

Memorials: St. George’s, Hardingham, United Kingdom and; Thiepval Memorial, France.

Bertie was born on 10th February 1893, the son of Arthur Joseph and Charlotte Adcock (nee Mingay), of Plough Lane, Hardingham, and the younger brother of Arthur Sidney Adcock.

He is recorded as being admitted to Hardingham Church of England School on 16th October 1901. He worked on farms in the Parish of Hardingham.

He was initially no 3521 of the Norfolk Regiment and enlisted at Norwich in October 1914. When he was shot and killed by a German sniper on 15 November 1916 contemporary Press reports referred to him as still being with the Norfolk Regiment, but it is clear from military records that he had transferred to the Northumberland Fusiliers.

It may be significant that the events which led to his death took place only a month after his older brother was reported missing, presumed killed. He was acting as a stretcher-bearer and, in broad daylight, went out into ‘No Man’s Land’ and brought in a wounded man on his back. He went out a second time with another stretcher bearer and brought in a second wounded man. After that, he went out a third time, alone, for about 70 yards to assist another wounded man. He was hit in the arm but continued on his way, and remained for some ten minutes dressing the man’s wounds. Going back for help, he had almost reached the Allied trenches when he was killed by a sniper’s bullet. His company commander described the third venture, in particular, as ‘a most glorious piece of gallantry’ and apparently his colonel recommended that he be awarded the Victoria Cross, at that time the only gallantry medal which could be awarded posthumously. This never happened, though he was included in a long list of men Mentioned in Despatches in the London Gazette for 22nd May 1917.

Strangely (for he is reported as having got “right back to our trench”) it would appear that his body was never recovered from No-Man’s Land, for he has no known burial place and is commemorated on the Thiepval Memorial.

His effects, amounting to a pitiful £5 14s 2d, were paid out to his father Arthur Adcock. Bertie Adcock was understandably regarded as a hero, and when his younger brother Frank, and his wife Marjorie (nee Skeet) had a son in July 1926 he was christened Bertie William. Sadly, the tragedies of the Adcock family (five of the eleven Adcock children died in infancy, and both Bertie and his older brother Arthur Sidney were killed in the Great War, as was Thomas Allen the husband of their younger sister Elsie) were not at an end, because little Bertie William Adcock, aged only 7 weeks, is recorded as being buried at Hardingham on 30 August 1926.