Joseph Element, known as Joe, was born in Chipperfield near Kings Langley in late Spring 1882 and baptised at Chipperfield Parish Church on Sunday, 2nd July in the same year. He was the second son born to John Element and Sarah Biggs who had a total of six children together who were: William, Joseph, George, Mary, John and Alfred. William died as a teenager and Joe’s father John died in 1891 aged forty-four, leaving Sarah to raise a young family. Joe’s brother George also served in the Great War with the Royal Field Artillery and although severely gassed, he survived the conflict.

When Joe was born his family lived on Bucks Hill, Chipperfield where his father and older brother William worked as ‘Agricultural Labourers’. In 1901 nineteen-year-old Joe and his seventeen-year-old brother George worked as ‘Horsemen’ on a local farm and his widowed mother Sarah had moved the family to 63 Chapel Street in Hemel Hempstead.

By the time he reached his twentieth birthday, Joe and his three younger brothers all worked as ‘Agricultural Labourers’ and lived at home with their mother Sarah. Shortly after the census was taken in 1911 the Element family moved once more, this time to 11 Two Waters Road in Boxmoor and it was from here that Joe joined the Colours.

He enlisted in December 1915 under the Derby scheme, attesting at Bedford where he joined the Bedfordshire Regiment. He was posted immediately to the 4th Battalion at Felixstowe to undergo basic training before being sent to France in 1916. After the disaster on the Somme in July 1916, the 4th Battalion was mobilised and landed in France on the 25th July where it came under the orders of the 190th Brigade in the 63rd (Royal Naval) Division.

Joe fought in the Battle of Ancre in November 1916 after which the 4th Battalion continued with operations in the area until early February 1917. Between the 6th and 16th February the Battalion was in action at Miraumont and over ten days, took part in heavy fighting with the enemy. Casualties were high and the 4th Bedfordshires War Diary recorded the following: “6-16 Feb 1917 Casualties Killed 68. Wounded 90. Missing 3. Missing believed Killed 45.”

Joe was amongst the ninety wounded men and despite being taken down the line for treatment, he succumbed to his wounds and died on Wednesday, 21st February 1917.

Joe is Remembered with Honour in Wimereux Communal Cemetery, Pas de Calais, France where he is interred in Grave II. E. 1. The inscription on his headstone, requested by his mother Sarah, reads: “GONE BUT NOT FORGOTTEN PEACE PERFECT PEACE”.

He was 34 years old when he died.

Joe was entitled to the British War Medal and the Allied Victory Medal.