Herbert Thomas Rodwell, known as Bert, was born in Hemel Hempstead in September 1892 and baptised a month later on Friday, 28th October in St John’s Parish Church in Boxmoor, Hertfordshire. He was the first child and oldest son born to Herbert William Rodwell and Minnie Bedford who had a large family of eleven children together. The children were: Bert (Herbert) Thomas, Thomas Bernard, Frederick, Winifred Eva, Ernest Frank, Dorothy, Lilias, Marjorie, Eva, Dennis and Arthur. Bert’s brother Frederick died on 30th September 1916 following a two-year illness and his brothers Bernard and Ernest also fought in the Great War. Ernest, a Wireless Operator in the Royal Navy, survived the conflict, but Ernest who had emigrated to Australia as a young man, was killed at the Somme in 1916 fighting for the Australian Infantry. Bernard’s biography also appears on this site.

When Bert was born, his family lived in Horsecroft Road in Boxmoor and his father worked as a ‘Steam Engine Fitter’ with John Dickinson & Co. Limited at Apsley Mills, where seven of his eleven children would also work at one time or another. The family moved in the late 1890s to 77 Weymouth Street, Apsley and would remain at this address for the next seventy years, the last of the family moving out when Bert’s mother Minnie died in 1965.

By the time Bert was eighteen in 1911, he had been working with Dickinson’s at Apsley Mills for almost five years and was an ‘Apprentice Engineer’ in the Engineering Department. He was still with Dickinsons when war broke out and he immediately joined the Colours.

At the end of August 1914 Bert attested at Hemel Hempstead and joined the newly formed 6th ‘Service’ Battalion Bedfordshire Regiment. He went to Aldershot to train with the 9th (Scottish) Division before the Battalion moved to the 37th Division at Andover in March 1915 for further training on Salisbury Plains. Finally, the 6th Bedfordshires transferred into the 112th Brigade and on completion of training mobilised for overseas service in July 1915. The Battalion embarked for France at Southampton aboard the SS Empress Queen and disembarked at Le Havre on the 30th July 1915.

The Rodwell’s were one of a number of Hemel families with more than one volunteer in the services and in August of 1915 shortly after Bert went to France, the Hemel Gazette published the fact that Herbert and Minnie had three sons in the Colours.

The 6th Bedfordshires saw its first significant action in July 1916 when it fought in the Battle of Bazentin Ridge, part of the great Somme offensive. This was followed a month later by the Battle of Pozières; it took part in the last major offensive of the Somme campaign in November, the Battle of Ancre. Bert fought in all of these actions coming through unscathed as well as receiving the award of a Military Medal for bravery.

This was a decoration introduced in March 1916 for ‘other ranks’ and ranked below the Distinguished Conduct Medal (D.C.M.). It was awarded for "acts of gallantry and devotion to duty under fire".

In early 1917 Bert moved with his Battalion to Arras in preparation for the next major allied offensive which began on the 10th April at the First Battle of the Scarpe. It appears that Bert was wounded at some point on the 13th or 14th April and he was taken down the line to a Base Hospital where sadly, he succumbed to his wounds.

Bert died on Tuesday, 17th April 1917. His death was reported in the Hemel Gazette not long afterwards.

He was commemorated on the Dickinson & Co. Limited War Memorial in Apsley and on the memorial plaque in St Mary’s Church, Apsley-End along with his younger brother Bernard.

Bert is Remembered with Honour in Duisans British Cemetery, Etrun, Pas-de-Calais, France where he is interred in Grave III. B. 29.

He was 24 years old when he died.

Bert was entitled to the 1914 – 15 Star, the British War Medal and the Allied Victory Medal.