Nat Gould

Herbert Askey 1902-1939

Herbert Askey was born in 1902 at Alstonefield in Staffordshire, the son of Martha Askey 1876-1911.

In 1901 his mother was working in London as a domestic servant in the household of a grocer at 175 High Street in St. Pancras. Living there also were some young apprentices. While in London she became pregnant, and walked all the way back home to her parents in Alstonefield. She had a son Herbert Askey who was born and baptised in 1902, and brought up by his grandparents in Alstonefield.

In 1904 Martha Askey was married to Ernest Bagshaw, and they had a daughter Hannah Bagshaw born on 18 April 1910. She died in 1997.

When the Second World War broke out Herbert Askey enlisted in the army.

Hatfield Park War Cemetery

He served as a gunner in the 115 Battery 26 Lt. A.A. Regiment in the Royal Artillery. Regimental No. 1481454, and was stationed at the strategically important De Havilland aircraft factory in Hatfield.

He was killed on 8 December 1939, when he was run over by a motor vehicle on the Barnet by-pass road in Hertfordshire.

Herbert Adams was buried with military honours in Hatfield Park War Cemetery, Hertfordshire (1), where there is a gravestone inscribed to his memory (2).

(1) From 1939 historic Hatfield House in Hertfordshire, home of the Marquesses of Salisbury, was used at a military hospital. A small section of its park was enclosed and laid out as a war cemetery. It has only twenty graves, and Gunner Herbert Adams was buried in Grave No.1.
(2) The photographs are included by kind permission of Steve and Sylvia Rogers and The War Graves Photographic Project, in co-operation with the Commonwealth War Graves Commission, who hold the copyright.