Sergeant Wilfred Henry Denham
2nd Battalion, the Devonshire Regiment, 8315
Killed in Action
Date of Birth: 1889
Place of Birth: Bideford, Devon
Date of Death: 10 March 1915 aged 26
Buried: Remembered on the Teignmouth War Memorial. Commemorated at the Le Touret War Memorial, Pas de Calais, France.
Awarded the 1914 Star, the British War Medal and the Victory Medal
Sergeant Wilfred Henry Denham, age 26.
Born in Bideford in 1889 and baptised on 27 July, he was the son of Francis, a butcher, and Elizabeth Denham of Mill Street, Bideford. In 1891 the family are still in Bideford. By 1901 he was living with his family at 11 Chelsea Place, Teignmouth, Devon.
He was shown serving with 2nd Battalion, Devonshire Regiment as a Lance Corporal on the 1911 census and stationed at St. George's Barracks, Malta, army service number 8315.
Wilfred had enlisted with 2nd Battalion, Devonshire Regiment in 1908 and had served in Egypt as well as Malta. Arriving back from Egypt in Southampton during October 1914 the Battalion landed in France on 6 November 1914.
Reaching the front by mid-November it was during a heavy attack on the German lines at Neuve Chappelle that Wilfred was killed in action on 10 March 1915. Remembered on Le Touret Memorial, France; Seafront Memorial and St. James’ Church Memorial Window, Teignmouth.
Wilfred's older brother Harold died in 1918 shortly before the end of the war from broncho-pneumonia having served throughout the war.
The 2nd Battalion of the The Devonshire Regiment
Devonshire Regiment
cap badge
In August 1914 his battalion were in Cairo, Egypt to protect the Suez Canal.
On the 1 October 1914 they returned to England where reservists added to their numbers.
They landed at Le Havre, France on 6 November 1914 as part of the 23rd Brigade in the 8th Division.
British soldiers arrive in Le Havre, France. © IWM (Q 51472)
Le Havre is a port in France which during the First World War was used as a base for storage and as a transport hub .
1.9 million British soldiers passed through Le Havre en route to the Western Front which was further North.
The 2nd Devons then marched to the Front.
By Earnest Brookes. National Library of Scotland License: CC BY 4.0
By mid-November 1914 they were at Messines where they served in the trenches near Neuve Chapelle.
They had 20 casualties and lost another 70 men to sickness (mostly frostbite).
“Four inches of snow on the ground and snowing up to the 22nd (November) it was nearly impossible to sleep with only one blanket.
Barn we occupied last week blown up by shell fire. Had over nine hundred sick and wounded in a week.
The men having come straight from India &c (Cairo, Eygpt) went right into the trenches, owing to the shortage of troops, the snow and intense cold was playing havoc with them, and the bulk of the frost bite cases were quite helpless with swollen feet and had to be evacuated”.
War Diary of Albert House
Sergeant-Major of the 24th Field Ambulance
Soldiers leaving a sap trench © IWM (Q 5100)
In December 1914 the 2nd Devons lost 128 men in capturing a German position known as the Moated Grange.
They remained in this area until March 1915, when they lost heavily when they attacked the German lines at Neuve Chapelle on the 10th March.
That was the day that Wilfred Henry Denham of Teignmouth died, aged 26.
