Joseph Walter Sear, known as ‘Joe’, was born in Hemel Hempstead in May 1886 the first child of William and Lizzie Jane Hutton. William was a Bricklayer and Lizzie a laundress and they lived at 40 Queen Street (today Queensway) when Joe was born. In 1901 Joe was still living with the family at the same address and working as a Confectioner’s Errand Boy. His mother was still working as a Laundress, but his father has changed occupation and is listed as a Miller’s Carter.

Joe had acquired four younger siblings by 1901 which increased to seven by the 1911 Census. His parents had been married for twenty-four years by the time of this return and they had a total of seventeen children, nine of whom had sadly died young. Joe’s living siblings, all younger, where; Lizzie Jane, Mary, Harry, Emily (Emma), George, Kate and Rose. Joe and two of his sisters, Lizzie Jane and Dorothy Rose were baptized together at St Mary’s Church in 1889, but Dorothy Rose died a year later. It appears that the youngest surviving child Rose was named for her dead sister.

Joe and his father William were both working as General Labourers on the outbreak of war and the family where by that time living at 145 Marlowes in Hemel Hempstead. Joe attested at Hertford with the 1st Battalion Bedfordshire Regiment in late August 1914 and following his basic training disembarked in France on 2nd February 1915. By 11th April the Battalion took over trenches 38 to 45 opposite Hill 60 and were engaged in the battle to take the hill six days later.

On the 17th April the first pair of mines, previously laid by the Royal Engineers, were blown and the rest ten seconds later. Debris was flung almost 300ft (91m) into the air and scattered for 300yds (270m) in all directions, causing some casualties to the attacking battalions of the 13th Brigade. Virtually the whole platoon of Saxon Infantry Regiment 105 in the front line was destroyed and the survivors were overwhelmed. The British took the Hill for the loss of only seven casualties.

However, the story over subsequent days was very different, as the Germans mounted intensive attacks to retake the Hill. On the 19th and 20th April they maintained heavy “annihilation bombardments” of the hill and by the 21st April the hill had become a moonscape of overlapping shell-holes and mine craters.

The Battalion War Diaries record the 1st Bedfordshire’s situation on the 20th April; “Enemy counter attacked: tremendous bombardment carried out against Hill 60, & our trenches & supports. Enemy's heavy guns enfiladed position, other guns firing from various directions: bombardment all night.”

Joe was Killed in Action on this day and was one of almost 100 men from the Battalion who died between the 18th and 21st April, many of whom were fresh and inexperienced replacements. In all the British suffered 3,100 casualties at Hill 60.

Joe Sear is Remembered with Honour at Poperinghe Old Military Cemetery, West-Vlaanderen, Belgium where he was interred in Plot: II. N. 8.

He was 29 years old when he was killed.

Joe was eligible for the 1914-15 Star, the British War Medal and the Allied Victory Medal.