Herbert Wilson Potton was born on Markyate, Hertfordshire in early Autumn 1885 and baptised in nearby All Saints Church on Sunday, 11th October in the same year. He was the sixth child of William Potton and Sarah Hobbs who had a total of ten children together. The children were; Annie, Arthur, Frederick, Kate, Alice Ethel, Herbert, Lily, Edward George, William Arthur and Edgar Frank. Herbert’s sister Alice died in 1898 and his oldest sister Annie died in 1903. The children were all born in Flamstead, Gaddesden Row or Markyate as their father William frequently moved to find work as a “Farm Labourer” or a “Shepherd”. However, when Herbert left school in 1898, he started work as a “Milkman” and it was possibly this work which took him to nearby Luton from time to time and where he met his future wife. 

Emily Rosina Rowing was a native of Roydon in Essex but had moved to Luton when her father Arthur obtained a job as a “Gravedigger” at the local Catholic Church. Emily and Herbert became sweethearts and they were married at Christ Church Luton, on Christmas Day 1909. Not long after the marriage, Herbert and Emily moved to Hemel Hempstead where he had obtained employment with John Dickinson & Co. Limited in Apsley Mills. They found accommodation on Ebberns Road in Apsley and shortly afterwards the first of their three children arrived. Alice Amy was born in June 1911 and followed by Herbert Arthur in September a year later. Their sister Hilda was born in January 1915 and this completed the family.

Herbert worked as a “Book Cutter” in Apsley Mills and he was still there on the outbreak of war in August 1914. Many young men left Dickinson’s during the first twelve months of the conflict, but as time passed the firm became more circumspect about releasing men as volunteers as it meant losing skills which could not be readily replaced. However, with the passing of the Military Services Act in 1916, the country was moved to full war footing and both married and unmarried men between the ages of nineteen and forty-one became eligible for service. It was following this change in law that Herbert joined the army when he attested at Bedford and enlisted before being sent for immediate basic training.

He went overseas early in 1917 and was posted to the 9th Battalion East Surrey Regiment. Not long after joining his unit, he saw serious action when he fought in the Arras Offensive which included the Battle of Vimy Ridge. In June he fought in the Battle of Messines which precluded the much bigger and more devastating Third Battle of Ypres and it was during the engagement at Messines in West Flanders that Herbert fell. The 9th Battalion was in support of the 1st Battalion Staffordshire Regiment and engaged in working parties prior to taking the relief. It was under constant heavy shelling from the enemy and just prior to moving up to the frontline, the battalion suffered sixty-two casualties, eleven killed and fifty-one wounded.

Herbert was one of the unfortunate men to die and he was Killed in Action on Thursday, 13th June 1917. 

Emily did not remarry after Herbert’s death and lived for many years with her brother Allen on Park Street in Luton where she died in late 1972 aged eighty-six.

Herbert appears on the Hemel Hempstead War Memorial twice under the initial H. and his full initials H. W. This was most likely as a result of his wife Emily and his parents submitting his details separately to the Hemel Gazette when the names were being compiled for inclusion. There are also a number of other men who appear twice for similar reasons. 

He was commemorated on the John Dickinson & Co. Limited War Memorial where he had worked and in St Mary’s Church where he had worshipped, both in Apsley End.

Herbert is Remembered with Honour at Ypres (Menin Gate) Memorial, West-Vlaanderen, Belgium, Panel 34.

He was 32 years old when he died.

Herbert was eligible for the British War Medal and the Allied Victory Medal.