Herbert's Story.
Herbert's grave in Flaybrick Cemetery, Birkenhead
Herbert Bostock was born in 1885 in Birkenhead to parents Robert and Jessie. Robert was a baker in the Merchant Navy and Jessie originally a housewife but later is recorded as a tobacconist and confectioner.
In 1891 Herbert was staying with grandparents at 65 Grange Road West and is at school.
By 1901 he was living with parents and siblings at 108 Raffles Road, Tranmere but 10 years later the family had moved to 152 Price Street, Birkenhead. Herbert was a goods toll collector at Birkenhead Ferries.
Herbert was also an Army Reservist and volunteer, joining the Cheshire Regiment at the outbreak of war and assigned to the 9th Battalion.
Within a year the Battalion was transferred to the Western Front, landing at Boulogne on the 19th July 1915. By September of that year the 9th Cheshires were involved in the Battle of Loos – they remained on the Western Front for the next nine months.
The battle of the Somme commenced on the 1st July 1916. On the 2nd July Herbert’s battalion was ordered to the front line with orders to attack the German army at La Boiselle France. Herbert was in ‘C’ company and initially they were tasked to protect the Lochnagar Crater, created by the detonation of underground explosives, however by late afternoon his company was sent forward to support the other battalion companies in the attack.
The battalion made slow but steady progress through the German trenches utilising bombing parties to clear the way ahead. By the early hours of the 3rd July they had gone as far as possible and were met with stiff German resistance. The 9th Cheshires were then relieved by another battalion.
It was during the attack between the 2nd and 4th July that Herbert was shot in the abdomen and due to the severity of his injury he was transferred back to Britain and on to the Stockport Western General Hospital, where he sadly died of his wounds on the 22nd August 1916.
During the war years the family had moved to the Moreton area but Herbert was buried at Flaybrick with a full military funeral, the cortege, headed by a detachment of the Cheshire Regiment, leaving from 17 Alverstone Avenue only a few hundred yards from the cemetery. The coffin was draped in the Union Jack and after the burial three shots were fired by the detachment and the Last Post was played.
Research by Chris