Henry Smith was born on Tuesday, 10th January 1899 in Piccotts End just outside Hemel Hempstead and baptised a few weeks later, in St. Mary’s Church on Wednesday, 1st February. He was the youngest child of Harry (Henry) Smith and Rebecca Ayres and his older siblings were Matilda, Hester, Victoria and William Henry along with two other children who sadly died in infancy. Not long after Henry was born the family moved to Apsley End where his father Harry worked as a “Pedlar” while his mother Rebecca and one of his older sisters, Hester were working in Apsley Mills in the “Envelope Department”.

In 1906 Henry started at Apsley Boys School and joined 123 other pupils in the small two room schoolhouse where he completed his education in 1913. When he left he followed his mother and now his older brother, William, into Dickinsons at Apsley Mills where he remained until he left to volunteer. As soon as he reached his eighteenth birthday he sought permission to leave his employment and travelled to Watford in March 1917, where he attested and enlisted in the Army. He was posted to a Training Regiment to undergo basic training and found himself in “A” Company of the “Young Soldiers” Battalion at Shoreham on the south coast, attached to the Royal Sussex Regiment before being posted to a “Graduated” Battalion to complete his training before he was sent overseas.

Following the introduction of conscription in 1916, the old regime of reserve battalions could not cope with the numbers of new recruits, so a new structure was put in place which meant the process of basic training was centralised and rather than enlisting with a local regiment, new soldiers were allocated to units most in need when their training was complete. When Henry went overseas sometime early in 1918, he was posted to the 6th Battalion Queen’s Own (Royal West Kent Regiment). The Queen’s came under the orders of the 37th Brigade in the 12th (Eastern) Division and had seen action in most of the major battles in the Somme and Arras sectors since 1915. During one thirty-seven-day period between December 1915 and January 1916, the Division had suffered 772 casualties during a “quiet period” of trench holding.

When Henry joined his Battalion in 1918 he was quickly in action when he fought in the Battles of Bapaume and Albert in March, phases of the First Battles of the Somme 1918. The 12th Division once more suffered heavy casualties, some 1285 men lost, and April and July were periods of rebuilding. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle famously said in his in his “British Campaign in France and Flanders, January to July 1918” of the Division’s role in March and April that they “withdrew from the line in glory, for it is no exaggeration to say that they had fought the Germans to an absolute standstill”. He was correct, the enemy offensive in Picardy had finally been defeated. The Battles of Amiens and Albert followed in August both of which Henry survived, but in mid-September the Queen’s were in action in the area of Manancourt attacking stubbornly held enemy strongholds. Over a few days and despite heavy casualties resistance was overcome and objectives achieved.

Sadly, however, Henry was killed in this fighting and he died on Friday, 19th September 1918.

He was commemorated on the War Memorial Plaque in St Mary’s Church, Apsley End and nearby on the John Dickinson & Co., Limited War Memorial. He was also commemorated on the War Memorial Plaque at the Church of St. Mary and St. Joseph in Boxmoor.

Henry is Remembered with Honour on the Vis-En-Artois Memorial, Pas de Calais, France, Panel 7.

He was only 19 years old when he died.

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