Private Francis Haydn Sanders

Francis who was the eldest son of Minnie Letchford and Haydn Douglas Sanders was born during the last quarter of 1894 in 0xfordshire. Before her marriage to Haydn, 19-year-old Minnie was employed as a greengrocer’s assistant according to the 1891 Census where she lived at 1 East Row, Rochester in Kent. In 1891, Haydn was employed as a boot salesman who was visiting Rochester at the time of the Census. In 1893 Minnie and Haydn married during the second quarter of 1893 in the Medway district of Kent.

Very little information exists about Francis’s early years, according to the 1901 Census, six-year-old Francis was living with his family at 39 Worth Road in Sheffield Yorkshire where his father managed a boot shop.

The 1911 Census reveals that 16-year-old Francis was employed as a green grocer’s assistant. His parents Minnie and Haydn had been married for 18 years and that all 6 of their children had survived. The Sanders family resided in 4 rooms at 49 Heaton Road in Mitcham.

Francis’s service record is not available through Ancestry, he enlisted in London in the Queen’s Royal West Surrey Regiment as a Private and was killed in Action on the 21st of July in 1916. Francis is remembered at the Thiepval Memorial.

On 1 July 1916, supported by a French attack to the south, thirteen divisions of Commonwealth forces launched an offensive on a line from north of Gommecourt to Maricourt. Despite a preliminary bombardment lasting seven days, the German defences were barely touched, and the attack met unexpectedly fierce resistance. Losses were catastrophic and with only minimal advances on the southern flank, the initial attack was a failure.