Cpl 22543 Herbert Norman Stansfield

• Age: 22
• From: Liverpool
• Regiment: The King's (Liverpool Regiment) 19th Btn
• D.O.W Wednesday 27th March 1918
• Commemorated at: St Souplet Brit Cem
  Panel Ref: I.J.23

Herbert Norman Stansfield was born on 05th August 1896 in Liverpool the son of Charles Edward Stansfield and his wife Patience (née Byford). His father, from Salford, and his mother, born in Liverpool, married in Liverpool in 1893 and had seven children. Herbert had an older brother Edward, and younger siblings Gilbert, Gladys, Mabel, and twins George and John. He was baptised in St. Cyprian’s, Edge Hill, on 02nd September 1896, his parents’ residence given as 100 Leopold Road, and his father’s occupation as bookkeeper. 

In 1901 his parents, with two children, are living at 28 Everton Road, Wavertree.  His father is 31, a bookkeeper, his mother is 27. Edward is 6 and Herbert 4. 

By 1911 they have moved to 1 Bromley Avenue, Sefton Park. His father, 41, is a Secretary of Limited Company, salt works, his mother is 37.  Edward, 16, Herbert, 14, and Gilbert, 8, are at school, and Gladys is 1 year old. 

Another daughter, Mabel, was born later in 1911 and twins George and John in 1913. 

He enlisted in Liverpool in 1914 joining the 20th Battalion of The King's Liverpool Regiment as Private 22543.

Formed in November 1914 the 20^th Battalion were originally billeted at Tournament Hall, Knotty Ash before on 29^th January 1915 they moved to the hutted accommodation purposely built at Lord Derby’s estate at Knowsley Hall. On 30th April 1915 the 20th Battalion alongside the other three Pals battalions left Liverpool via Prescot Station for further training at Belton Park, Grantham. They remained here until September 1915 when they reached Larkhill Camp on Salisbury Plain. He arrived in France on 7^th November 1915.

The 20th Bn was disbanded on the 08th February 1918 at Chauny, east of Noyon, just prior to the German Spring offensive and it is likely that he was transferred to the 19th Battalion at that time. Herbert was serving in the 19^th Battalion, The King’s Liverpool Regiment as Corporal No 22543 when he  was declared Missing on 23rd March 1918. He had been captured by the Germans on that date with a bullet wound to the head, and died from his wounds on 27th March 1918, aged 22, in a German field hospital at St. Quentin.  He was buried in Faubourg St. Martin (Extension) graveyard, St. Quentin.   

His identity disc apparently had not yet been changed, as German POW records show him in the 20th Bn. Herbert’s name was sent on the German list of dead received by the International Red Cross on 15th August 1918. ICRC records show him registered at Limburg POW camp, but this was a German record-keeping formality and sometimes POWs listed in camps were not physically present in the camp. 

A newspaper report in the Liverpool Echo of 30th April 1918 advised that he had been taken Prisoner of War:

H. N. Stansfield, who joined the Kings Liverpool Regiment shortly after the war broke out and has been "missing" since March 22nd, has now been reported severely wounded and a prisoner in Germany. He was educated at the Liverpool Institute and was a member of the OTC there.

After the war when graves were concentrated, Herbert’s body, identified by the cross on his grave and his corporal’s chevrons, was exhumed and reburied in St. Souplet British Cemetery, where he now rests. His headstone inscription reads, 

“A NOBLE SON AND BROTHER BELOVED BY ALL WHO KNEW HIM” 

St. Souplet village was captured by the American 30th Division on the 10th October 1918. The American troops made a cemetery of 371 American and seven British graves on the South-West side of the village, on the road to Vaux-Andigny. A smaller British cemetery was made alongside. The American graves were removed after the Armistice and the seven British graves were moved into the British cemetery. Further British graves were brought in from the surrounding battlefields and the following smaller burial grounds. There are now nearly 750, 1914-18 war casualties commemorated in this site. Of these, one-fifth are unidentified and special memorials are erected to 55 soldiers from the United Kingdom, buried in other cemeteries, whose graves could not be found. The cemetery covers an area of 2,504 square metres and is enclosed by a stone rubble wall.

Herbert earned his three medals. His father Charles received Herbert’s Army effects and a War Gratuity of £16-10.  

The pension card in the name of his mother, Mrs. Patience Stansfield, 1 Bromley Avenue, Sefton Park, appears to show that a war pension was refused.  Often, in cases of soldiers Missing in Action, a pension was later awarded. 

His older brother Edward served in the Royal Army Medical Corps and survived the war.

In 1939 his mother was living in Hoylake, and is listed as married.  A Charles E. Stansfield, of the right age, is an inmate in the County Mental Hospital in Chester.  His father died in 1943, aged 72 and his mother lived until 1964, to the age of 92.

Herbert is commemorated on the following Memorials:

Holy Trinity Church Roll of Service, Wavertree

St, Barnabas’ Church, Mossley Hill tablet and Roll of Honour

Liverpool’s Hall of Remembrance, Panel 40

Liverpool Institute WW1 Memorial now housed at L.I.P.A. Mount Street, Liverpool.

We currently have no further information on Herbert Norman Stansfield, If you have or know someone who may be able to add to the history of this soldier, please contact us.