Ted (Teddie) Pegnall

Born: 1889

Died: 2 November 1918

Rank and Regiment: Lance Corporal 205905 in the 6th Battalion of the Northamptonshire Regiment (formerly 4069 in the Cambridgeshire Regiment and 305327 in the Hertfordshire Yeomanry)

Resting Place: Abbeville Communal Cemetery Extension, Somme, France - Plot V, Row A, Grave 10

Memorials: St. Peter and St. Paul, Barnham Broom, United Kingdom

Teddie was born 1889 to William (an agricultural labourer) and Emma Pegnall (nee Jacobs). He was part of a large family with thirteen children however by the 1911 Census, four had sadly passed away. His living siblings were John, Ada, Maria, Alice, Katie, Henry, George and Annie.

It is possible that the family were Nonconformists – Emma’s mother’s given name was Temperance, and William and Emma gave their eldest daughter the name as a middle name. We may also suppose that they were quite a close family; in the 1911 Census Temperance Holliday (as she had become) was living with them, and William described her as “Mother” rather than “Mother-in-law”.

As early as 1901, Teddie then aged only twelve, was working as an “ordinary agricultural labourer”. Later in 1911 he was 22 years old and living at The Rectory, Caldicote, Cambridgeshire and working as a servant and domestic groom for the head of the house, Olive Elizabeth Pashley.

In March 1918, he married Lucy Isabelle Cracknell in Woodbridge, Suffolk.

Virtually none of Teddie’s military records survive; but it appears that he enlisted in Cambridge as a private (4069). He was then transferred to the Hertfordshire Yeomanry (305327) before settling into the 6th Battalion of the Northamptonshire Regiment. At the time of his death, he had been promoted to Lance Corporal.

On the 20th October 1918, Teddie’s Battalion were part of the decisive allied victory at the Battle of the Settle. Teddie was reported in the War Office Daily List No. 5708 on 29th October 1918 to be entitled to wear a “Wound Stripe” as authorised by Army Order 204 of 6th July 1916, demonstrating that he had incurred serious injuries in this conflict. Later, List 5745 reports that Pegnall had died of his wounds on 2nd November 1918, 9 days before the war ended. He was buried at Abbeville Communal Cemetery Extension and is commemorated on the Barnham Broom War Memorial.

Lucy went on to marry Harry Ramsay in Woodbridge in 1919. They both lived to a good age, Lucy surviving Harry by some years before dying in Ipswich in 1974.

Abbeville Communal Cemetery Extension, France