Joseph Hosier was born on Friday, 28th March 1890 in Hemel Hempstead and baptised in St Mary’s Church on Sunday, 17th October in the same year. He was the second child born to Joseph Hosier and Mary Ann Sells and he had one sibling, an older sister Sarah. At the time of his birth Joseph’s family lived on Bury Hill in Hemel Hempstead just a few doors away from both his paternal and maternal Grandparents. His father Joseph worked as a ‘Bricklayer’s Labourer’.

On the 25th September 1895 Joseph started his education at Bury Mill End Infants school. The school log recorded that both Joseph and another young boy started on the same day and candidly states “Both are very backward and scarcely know their letters”. The other boy was Francis Vercoe who was a year older than Joseph and he was killed in the Great War almost exactly one month after Joseph fell. Francis’ biography also appears on this site.

When he was eight years old Joseph moved to Boxmoor JMI school, but at this point his family life becomes confusing. The school log lists his parent/guardian as one Mrs Atkins of 24 Hammerfield who may possibly have been a relation.

However, the log also records that Joseph left the school on the 3rd March 1900 because he had “gone to the Hemel Hempstead Union”, in other words to the Workhouse. This suggests that he was orphaned, and it is known that both he and his sister Sarah lived as ‘Boarders’ at the home of Thomas Lea in 1901. The Union Workhouse was situated on Queen Street (now Queensway) opposite the present day location of the Royal British Legion. It opened in 1835 and operated as a workhouse until 1920 when it became the Infirmary, before being renamed Hempstead House Public Assistance Institution in 1930 and finally St. Paul's Hospital in 1948. It closed its doors for the last time in 1970.

Six months after going into the Workhouse he had returned to Boxmoor school and was now under the guardianship of Thomas Lea of Vine Cottage on South Hill, but again Joseph left the school this time to go back to his old school, Bury Mill End. His move was “by request of Mrs Markham member of the Board of Guardians and daughter of a School Bd Member”. It is not known why the move was requested but as a ‘Guardian’ responsible for administering the ‘Poor Law’ she had the authority to make such a request.

When he eventually left school in 1903, Joseph started work as a ‘Printer’ with John Dickinson & Co Limited in the ‘Envelope Department’ in Apsley Mills. He was still with Dickinsons in 1911 and by this time had met Ethel May Hunt a work colleague in the Envelope Department. The young couple married in Hemel Hempstead in late 1913.

Joseph and Ethel set up home at 126 London Road in the Two Waters area of Boxmoor where they lived until Joseph went off to war. They were to have one child together, a daughter whom they named Violet and who was born in early 1917. Tragically, little Violet never me her father who died just a few months after she came into the world.

Joseph enlisted for service in April 1915 when he attested in Bedford and joined the Bedfordshire Regiment and was subsequently posted to the 7th (Service) Battalion known as ‘The Shiney Seventh’. 

Joseph completed his basic training on Salisbury Plain and following some home leave, was sent to France in February 1916 to join his Battalion at the Front. For the first few months there was no significant action but, on the 1st July, the 7th Battalion were assigned as an assault battalion in the Battle of Albert, the first engagement of the Somme offensive. Joseph fought alongside his comrades for nine days until relieved and he survived although the casualty rate was appalling.

He next fought in the battle of Bazentin Ridge on the 14th July and again came through unscathed. One month later however, Joseph was admitted to No.4 Stationary Hospital with of all things ‘Dental Caries’. Whilst this may sound trivial, the Admission and Discharge Register records eighteen soldiers admitted with the same problem over two days, by far the most common reason for admission.

One hundred years ago, most men who enlisted were in good physical health because hard work was a normal part of life. Unfortunately, their teeth were often in a terrible state. At the time, hardly anyone went to the dentist on a regular basis and men with a lot of dental problems were sometimes excluded from enlisting because poor teeth could cause lots of problems for soldiers at war.

An example of the extent of dental problems amongst soldiers at the Front is revealed in New Zealand’s military archive. The country’s government set up the New Zealand Dental Corps in 1915 to deal with the extent of dental problems amongst new recruits. The archive records that at the Trentham and Featherston army camps in one group of 1998 men, the 17th Reinforcements, dentists carried out: 6335 fillings; 5237 extractions and supplied 854 dentures suggesting an average of six procedures per man. It is likely that virtually every soldier had some attention.

Joseph was in hospital for treatment for just under one month, so his treatment was either extensive of in all probability he had suffered an infection as a result of his dental problems. He returned to his unit on the 11th September and spent the last phase of the Somme offensive with the 7th Battalion in reserve.

Early 1917 saw Joseph involved in continuing operations around the Ancre until he fought in the Third Battle of the Scarpe, part of the Arras offensive. Fighting was intense, and all was confusion on the first day which saw limited gains at a high cost in terms of casualties. The Battalion War Diary recorded the following: “Officers; Killed 5, Wounded 8, Died of Wounds 1 Other Ranks ;Killed 19, Missing 48, Wounded 162, Died of Wounds 6, Missing believed Killed 4, Missing & Wounded 3”. A total of 242 men.

Joseph was one of the men ‘Killed in Action’ and he died on Thursday, 3rd May 1917.

Joseph is Remembered with Honour on the Arras Memorial, Pas-de-Calais, France on Bay 5.

He was 27 years old when he died.

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