Francis Horward Vercoe was born in Hemel Hempstead in late 1889 the second son of James Breed Vercoe and Mary Louisa Grist. Francis had an older brother Henry Giles and a younger sister Ellen Louisa. When he was born his family lived at Adeyfield Farm near Leverstock Green, Hertfordshire and his father worked as a ‘Carpenter and Builder’ Francis lost his father in 1895, the year he entered Bury Mill End School at six years of age. His first day was recorded rather candidly by his teacher who said that “he was very backward and hardly knew his letters”. The same comment was applied to another young boy, Joseph Hosier, who started on the same day as Francis. Joseph was killed just a month before Francis in France and his biography also appears on this site.

This inauspicious start to his education soon got much worse due to the family’s straitened circumstances following his father’s death. First his brother Henry was sent to "Spurgeons Orphanage" also known as Stockwell orphanage, a home and school for fatherless boys. Shortly afterwards young Francis was sent to King Edward’s School, Wormley Hill, Witley in Surrey. This was described as a school for the destitute and it appears that most of the children, whilst recorded as ‘scholars’, in fact had to work in order to support their attendance. In 1901 aged eleven, Francis was at King Edward’s and worked as a ‘Kitchen Boy’. This desperate start in life gave no indication of the heroic and selfless deeds that Francis would perform in the most perilous of situations during to coming war.

By the time of the 1911 Census, Francis lived and worked in Stanmore, Middlesex as a ‘Baker’ but he later left this trade and joined the Metropolitan Police on the 12th January 1915. He time in the force was brief however and five months later, he attested in London and enlisted with the Royal Garrison Artillery (RGA) as a Gunner.

He was posted to Great Yarmouth immediately to 13 Company RGA before being posted again just over two weeks later to Lydd in Kent. Only twenty-four days after joining the Colours he was sent to France where he disembarked on the 31st July 1915 and joined the 7th Siege Battery RGA on the 23rd August 1915.

In December 1915 Francis was near Ypres with his comrades and on the 29th December, he performed the first of two acts of extreme bravery. The first resulted in the award of the Distinguished Conduct Medal (DCM) and the citation in the London Gazette the following January states the following: “For conspicuous gallantry and devotion to duty near Ypres on 29th December, 1915, when under heavy fire of high explosive and gas shells, he left his dug-out and went about 200 yards through a dense cloud of gas to a farm where another battery was billeted, and rendered first aid to several wounded men. While he was doing this a bursting shell blew him across the room in which he was working, but he coolly picked himself up and returned to his work.”

A single brave act under such conditions is remarkable enough, but just over a month later on the 14th February 1916, Francis performed another stirring deed. Again the citation describes the event: “For conspicuous gallantry. He went out with his officer under heavy shell fire and assisted in rescuing the drivers of a wagon which had been hit by a shell, drivers and horses being wounded. He and his officer were then both wounded by a shell, the latter very severely. Gunner Vercoe, wounded as he was, carried him back under heavy fire and refused to have his own wounds attended to till he had assisted to dress those of his officer.” For this second act Francis was awarded a ‘Bar’, in effect a second DCM for his bravery.

His actions were celebrated back in Hemel Hempstead and the Gazette published a number of reports containing descriptions of events and letters from his officers and comrades. The Distinguished Conduct Medal was established in 1854 by Queen Victoria as a decoration for gallantry in the field by other ranks of the British Army. It is the oldest British award for gallantry and was a second level military decoration.

Francis spent two weeks in a Base Hospital recovering from his wounds before returning to his unit on the 11th March 1916. Shortly afterwards he was granted home leave and returned to Hemel Hempstead on the 24th March where he had thirteen days with his family and friends. His visit home was reported in the Hemel Gazette.

On his return to France he was soon back in hospital, this time having accidentally fractured a fibula. His injury was serious enough that his recovery required evacuation to England and he was transferred to a VAD Hospital in Torquay. He spent four months in recovery before he returned to France, this time posted to the 145th Battery RGA. His return coincided with his promotion to Corporal on the 2nd December 1916.

When Francis met his end, it was ironically when least expected and possibly when he was as safe as he could have been at the Front. He was sitting outside his dug-out reading, when a sudden burst of shelling from a nearby wood resulted in a shell hitting him and killing him instantly. 

Francis died on Monday, 4th June 1917. Once again, the Gazette carried a report of his end in the form of a letter from a comrade. 

Francis is Remembered with Honour in Underhill Farm Cemetery, Hainaut, Belgium where he is interred in Grave A.4. The inscription on his headstone, requested by his mother Mary Louisa, reads: “GOD WILL LINK THE BROKEN CHAIN CLOSER WHEN WE MEET AGAIN”.

He was 28 years old when he died.

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