Huthwaite WW One Memorial
1914 - 1918 Remembrance
David Randall
Private 21406 - Sherwood Foresters
Notts and Derby Regiment 2nd Bn.
Enlisted: January 1915
Killed in Action 16th May 1916 : Aged 27
La Brique Military Cemetery No. 2. Grave Ref. I.V. 17
Huthwaite Online WW1 Remembrance
Private 21406 David Randall was born Q3 1887 in Mansfield, Nottinghamshire. Derbyshire parentage may trace 1866 marriage of coal miner George Randall from Chesterfield, finding his wife in Brampton, from where Mrs Alice Randall started raising four children. Seven out of twelve survived infancy, including four more from Pleasley Hill, where Mansfield 1891 census intriguingly offers New England birthplace suggesting lodgings in a future named public house. Listing that Randall household headed by George 48, wife Alice 46, Arthur 20, Amelia 18, Robert 11, George William 8, Lucy 6 and David 3, slightly predates birth of Alice.
Mr David Randall became a long experience farmhand started by aged parents settling their Randall family into Hucknall-under-Huthwaite, evidently claiming independent Common Road farmer status from 1901 census. Elder sons continued coal mining, while 14 year old David was at time servant at Crow Trees Farm in adjacent Fulwood, assisting an even older widowed Clarke. David worked their own dairy farm beyond 1911, when recognising Huthwaite developments gave Springwell Street address.
Private 21406 David Randall locally enlisted January 1915. Joining 2nd Battalion, Notts and Derby Regiment is reported having led to initial stationing at Newcastle-upon-Tyne. Meeting and swiftly marrying Miss Emma Morgan from nearby Chirton Farm just one month before mobilisation of those Sherwood Foresters abroad, left a widow with his unseen infant son to receive news that Pte Randall had been killed by a snipers bullet on 16th May 1916, aged 27.
Pte David Randall was buried and commemorated in the Belgium La Brique Miliary Cemetery. His widowed mother and siblings ensured Huthwaite remembrance on this Cemetery Cenotaph, which adds named Roll of Honour inside the Parish Church.
HUTHWAITE SOLDIER’S TRAGIC DEATH - A SHORT MARRIED LIFE
The latest Huthwaite man to lay down his life for the great cause is Private David Randall, and the circumstances surrounding his end are of an unusually sad and touching nature. He was 28 years old, and previously worked as a farm hand. He enlisted in January of last year, his home being in Springwell Street with his aged and widowed mother. He joined the 2nd Sherwood Foresters, his number being 21406, A Company, 2nd Platoon, and was soon stationed in Newcastle-on-Tyne. There he met and married a Miss Emma Morgan, of Chirton Farm, near Newcastle. He was popular with officers and men in his regiment and seemed to have a career before him when the regiment was ordered to the front after he had been married only a month, but the news eventually arrived that he had been killed by a sniper on the night of the 16th. of May. The most pathetic feature of this case is that he leaves an infant son, whom he has never seen. An officer of his regiment, writing to Mrs. Randall, states that he was a good soldier, and his death would be a great loss to the Company. On Sunday the Union Jack was hoisted to half-mast on the Parish Church tower to his memory.
09 Feb 09 by Gary Elliott Updated 30 Jun 12