Family :

Education & Career :

The Hospital Boys' School, Great Yarmouth

Service Life:

Campaigns:

• The First World War 1914-1918, World-wide.

23 November 1914 - 6 February 1915. As the armies of 1914 fought themselves to exhaustion they settled down by the end of the year to the realities of static trench warfare. During the winter, activity was mostly comprised of a series of small scale raids and attempts by the BEF to gain superiority over the battlefront. At the same time increasing numbers of Territorial battalions and replacements for the Regular battalions came into theatre and had to be trained and acclimatised to trench occupation. This period was further noted for the severity of the weather and the need to rapidly source and equip the troops with adequate winter and waterproof equipment, whilst improving the trench conditions. Miserable times.

Detail :

2nd LIEUTENANT SAMUEL SHORTER ARTHUR WADE, 2nd BATTN. LINCOLNSHIRE REGIMENT, Born on 15th January 1876 at Great Yarmouth, and was the son of James and Maria Wade of that town. His brother was Colour-Sergeant James Wade (Distinguished Conduct Medal for South African War), of the same regiment. He was educated at the Hospital Boys' School, Great Yarmouth. 2nd Lieutenant Wade enlisted in May, 1895, when he joined at Woolwich, afterwards serving at the depot, where he was for four years Acting Schoolmaster in charge. He then joined his battalion in South Africa for the Boer War, receiving on its conclusion the war medals. After returning from South Africa, he served with his battalion at various stations at home and abroad, including Salisbury Plain, Aldershot, Gibraltar, and Bermuda. He left the latter for Halifax, Nova Scotia, arriving on the 16th September, 1914, where the battalion awaited the arrival of the Canadian Contingent, and sailed for Europe, reaching Plymouth in October. In the meantime he had received several steps in promotion: Corporal, 1896 : Sergeant, 1899 ; Colour-Sergeant, 1903 : Regimental Quartermaster-Sergeant, January, 1914. He received the Long Service medal in 1913. He was highly commended by the Commandant of the School of Mounted Infantry at Longmoor, where from 1908-10 he acted as Sergeant- Major of the Mounted Infantry Battalions. He received his commission on the 1st November 1914, during the Great War. Subsequently he was reported missing, and is believed to have been killed on the 8th December, 1914. Mrs. Ward received an appreciative letter of sympathy from a Major of the battalion in which he said: I am afraid I can hold out no hope that your husband is alive. You know what a brave man he was and when he heard there was an attack he stayed and took part in it. He charged with his company and did not return, but his cap was picked up with a bullet through it. (Mrs. Wade afterwards received the cap from the front.) He had only joined this battalion the night before in the trenches. He was a brave officer, and died doing more than his duty, and is a great loss to the regiment. A Private of his battalion wrote: On the night of the 8th December we made an attack in the front of a wood at Kemmel. Mr. Wade said to me, 'Come on, my lad: it only wants one to lead,' and Mr. Wade and I set off, getting well in front of the company. We got to a German dummy trench, and I jumped in, and lying down turned round looking for the officer. I heard he was wounded, and asking if he was attended to they said, ' No’ and I got up and retired to the officer, and got him out of the trench and dressed him, seeing that he was hit in the head, and in my idea the officer was dead when I left him.

Masonic :

Source :

The project globally acknowledges the following as sources of information for research across the whole database:

• The Commonwealth War Graves Commission
• The (UK) National Archives
• Ancestry.co.uk - Genealogy, Family Trees & Family History online
• ugle.org.uk - The records of the United Grand Lodge of England including the Library and Museum of Freemasonry

Additional Source:

• Founder Researchers : Paul Masters & Mike McCarthy
• Researcher : Bruce Littley