WALTER TALBOT 

Sapper Walter Talbot, 45th (Fortress) Company, Royal Engineers, Regimental Number 1551 , was accidentally killed at Kroonstad, on February 10, 1902. He died of multiple injuries, aged 24. He is buried at North Road Cemetery, Kroonstad, South Africa.

Walter Talbot was the eldest child of Walter Talbot (1857 – 1932) and Ellen nee Mumford (1860 – 1910), and brother to Frederick, Albert, Maggie, Ellen Thomas, Martha, Louis, Emma and Fanny. He was born at 14 Gladstone Street, Crewe on 26th Jan 1880, and baptised on 2nd May. His address in 1891, and until he left the UK, was 25 Charles Street, Crewe. On 7 Jan 1895, just a fortnight before his fifteenth birthday, Walter joined the London and North Western Railway Company as an apprentice at Crewe. Three years later, on 8 Mar 1898, when he was 18, he enlisted into the Royal Engineers. By then, his occupation was engine fitter, like his father.

Walter went to South Africa with the second group of Royal Engineer Reservists from Crewe. In 1901, they were stationed at Kroonstad, a major town in Orange Free State. On Boxing Day pf that year, men of the 2000-strong garrison took part in a series of sports events, with prizes donated by the townsfolk of Kroonstad. 16 men from the Crewe Railway Volunteers were very successful in the competitions. Walter Talbot won the half mile scratch race. He was also part of the winning tug of war team, and received a prize of 5 shillings (25p).

On 9th February 1901, a team of Engineers from Crewe were working on the railway, and an accident occurred at the Government Workshop. Walter was seriously injured, and died of multiple injuries the next day. He was 24 years old.  The Army Register of Soldiers’ Effects shows that Walter’s next of kin was his father, indicating that he was not married.