Benjamin Cooley was born in Northchurch, Hertfordshire in the spring of 1892, the youngest child of William Cooley and Matilda Osborne who had a large family of twelve together. The children were: George, Rose Louisa, Frank, Caroline, Cornelius, Clara, Mark, Ellen, Leonard, Edith, Edward and Benjamin. His brother’s Cornelius and Edward both served in the Great War with the Royal Field Artillery and the Northamptonshire Regiment respectively and survived the conflict.

Benjamin’s father William was a "Boot and Shoemaker" and had brought his wife and family to the Hammerfield area of Hemel Hempstead which for a time had a nascent shoe industry. Benjamin's mother Matilda ran a grocer’s shop at the top of Glenview Road close to the family home on Sunnyhill Road.  When Benjamin left school in 1905 he found work as a "Labourer" although his employer is not known and shortly afterwards me Elsie Caroline Crook a local girl from the Hammerfield area. 

They were married in Hemel Hempstead in late 1912 and set up home together at 13 Glenview Road. They went on to have three children; Dorothy born in 1913 and the twins, Maud and Carrie Mabel born in 1914. Benjamin was called up for service under the Military Service Act and went to Watford in March 1916 where he attested and enlisted with the Grenadier Guards. He was then sent to Caterham Barracks in Surrey where he completed his basic training before going overseas. It is not known when Benjamin went to France but it would have been no earlier that September 1916 and when he went to the Front, he was posted to the 2nd Battalion Grenadiers.

At some point following his arrival, Benjamin was wounded, taken out of the line and transferred to a Base Hospital for treatment and recovery. It seems that this may have been in mid-1917 and possibly at the Battle of Pilckem Ridge, where the 2nd Grenadiers suffered significant casualties. Benjamin had returned to his unit by early 1918 and in March he fought in a series of actions over the last nine days of that month. Having again suffered heavy casualties as a result of persistent German shelling, on the 30th March the Battalion War Diary recorded further losses after the worst seem to be over: “Very heavy shelling from 9am to 11.15am across the whole Divisional Front…about a dozen of the enemy succeeded in gaining a footing in a post of No.3 Company from which most of the occupants had been blown by shell fire”. The casualties reported from this action were: “Killed 10, Wounded 38, Missing 1.”

It is probable that Benjamin was one of the wounded men and that he was taken out of the line for treatment. Sadly, his military records state that he died of his wounds at No.3 Field Ambulance on Saturday, 30th March 1918. His death was reported in the Hemel Gazette just over a month after he died. The report incorrectly stated that he and his wife had two children when in fact they had three.

He was commemorated on the War Memorial Plaque in St. Francis of Assissi Church in Hammerfield and also in St. John the Evangelist church in Boxmoor.

Benjamin is Remembered with Honour in Bac-Du-Sud British Cemetery, Bailleulval, Pas-de-Calais, France, where he is interred in Grave II. A. 20.

He was 27 years old when he died.

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