Archibald Aldwinkle

Name	Archibald Aldwinkle
Corps	Nottinghamshire & Derbyshire (Sherwood Foresters) Regiment 10th Battalion
Rank	Private
Service No.	17199
Date/Place of entry	25 September 1914
Date of death	1981
Memorial/Grave

Archibald Aldwinckle was born in 1897, the youngest of five sons born to Cecil Aldwinckle and his Sheffield-born wife Frances. Cecil was born in Cottingham, a son of Bartholomew Aldwinckle, and grew up there during the 1860s and early1870s. His father had been a farmer but by Cecil’s childhood was a farm labourer. Cecil moved to Ilkeston on the Derbyshire – Nottinghamshire boundary and had various jobs in the coalmines; as a sinker, a mining contractor and a labourer. His five sons all worked in the mines.

Archibald served in the Nottinghamshire & Derbyshire (Sherwood Foresters) Regiment. No service record survives but his Silver War Badge Roll entry (this badge was awarded to servicemen who became sick or were wounded while serving in a theatre of war or at home) states he enlisted on 25th September 1914.

The entry states that Archibald was in the 10th (Service) Battalion, which was a New Army battalion formed at Derby in September 1914. It came under the orders of 51st Brigade in 17th (Northern) Division and arrived in France on 14 July 1915. The early part of the war was spent on the Front Line in the southern area of the Ypres Salient. In the Spring of 1916 the Division captured Fricourt during the Battle of Albert and took part in the Battle of Delville Wood. The following year it saw action in the1st and 2nd Battles of the Scarpe in the Arras Offensive, and then the 1st and 2nd Battles of Passchendaele.

On 21st March 1918 the German Army launched its Spring Offensive. Over the next five days the 17th Division fought under General Byng in the Battles of St. Quentin and Bapaume. There was a great loss of life during these battles and three Cottingham men died; John Wilden who was the husband of Archibald’s cousin Alice Aldwinckle, Harry Fisher and Roland Ingram.

Without a service record we cannot tell at what point Archibald was incapacitated but the Silver War Badge record states he was discharged on 10 June 1918 aged twenty two under Army Regulation 392 (xvi), as ‘surplus to military requirements (having suffered impairment since entry into the service).’ His brother Albert Edward was to be similarly discharged the following year. Their brother Frank had been killed in action in January1917. Their other brother Harry must also have been injured or become ill as he too received a Silver War Badge though no date is given.

Archibald married in 1920 and in the 1930s was a postmaster in Ilkeston. He died in 1981.

For an account of the historic extended Aldwinckle family see John Bartholomew Aldwinckle. The following list gives the names of all known servicemen who were descended from Aldwinckles living Cottingham and Middleton in the nineteenth century.

(I also have information on a further five servicemen descended from the Aldwinckle family of Drayton in Leicestershire whose ancestors moved there from Cottingham in the eighteenth century. They are Ernest Aldwinckle, George Harry Aldwinckle, William Harold Aldwinckle, Herbert Aldwinckle and William James Aldwinckle. Please contact me <cottinghamsoldiers@gmail.com> if you would like to know more.)

Servicemen descended from Thomas Aldwinckle (1816-1899):
William Augustus Aldwinckle, Ralph Aldwinckle and Ernest Henry Aldwinckle.

Servicemen descended from Henry Aldwinckle (1770-1842):
John Bartholomew Aldwinckle, Charles Henry Aldwinckle, Arthur Edwin Aldwinckle, Frederick Wade Coles, Albert Edward Aldwinckle, Archibald Aldwinckle, Frank Aldwinckle, Harry Aldwinckle, William John Aldwinckle,  Harry Aldwinckle, George Robert Aldwinckle, Thomas Aldwinckle and Walter Aldwinckle.

Servicemen descended from William Aldwinckle (1807-1891):
Bartle Essex Aldwinckle, Charles Reginald Burdett, Alfred Norman Burdett and William Edward Burdett.

Servicemen descended from John Aldwinckle (1817-1884):
John Aldwinckle, Percy Aldwinckle, Henry Aldwinckle and Bernard Aldwinckle.