Alfred Mayfield Bradshaw’s father, Alfred Snr., was a draper and milliner who ran a shop in High Road, Tottenham, with his wife Emily nee Wood. Young Alfred was born in June 1896, the eldest of the eight surviving children, four having died in infancy. The business encompassed a couple of adjoining premises, and must have been quite a successful operation, as it employed several assistants, and the children grew up with the help of domestic servants. However, as they each completed their schooling, they would enter the business themselves, as did young Alfred from the age of about fifteen or sixteen years.

Alfred must have lost no time in enlisting following the outbreak of war. He joined the 11th Battalion of the Middlesex Regiment (The Duke of Cambridge’s Own), which Battalion – the first ‘Service’ Battalion of the Regiment – which was formed at Mill Hill on 8th August 1914. It is documented that the whole Battalion was recruited within a week, so Alfred almost certainly enlisted in the second week of August 1914.

From the moment of enlistment, training was carried on continuously. On 22nd August, the Battalion proceeded from Mill Hill by train to Colchester, where it came under command of 36th Brigade in 12th (Eastern) Division. In October the 36th Brigade proceeded by train to camp at St. Martin’s Plain, Shorncliffe, moving in November into a ‘hutted’ camp at Sandling. By the end of 1914 the Brigade made another move, this time to billets in Folkestone, where it remained until the following February.

By February 1915, after several months of vigorous training, Alfred would have become very fit, which was just as well, because his Battalion, in Brigade and Division, was then required to proceed by route march from Folkestone to Aldershot, a march which took five days and went via Ashford, Maidstone, Edenbridge, Dorking and Guildford. At Aldershot, the Battalion moved into the Ramillies Barracks. Three more months of strenuous work followed until, on 31st May 1915, the Battalion set off in two parties for France.

In the early hours of 1st June, they entered Boulogne Harbour, from where they immediately marched the two miles to the first camp. Over the following days the entire Brigade would continue marching as it made its way to the front. The hard dusty cobbles of the French roads, together with the heat of the day and their full and heavy packs, were a great strain on the men, as fit as they were, and would cause some to fall out.

By 11th June, Alfred and his colleagues were ready for their first instruction in trench warfare, when they entered front line trenches for a series of 24-hour ‘tours’. These were then followed by a further period of instruction out of the front line. On 25th June, the Battalion, in Brigade, was allotted to the Ploegsteert Wood sub-sector, the 12th Division at that time having taken over a sector of the line. Torrential rain fell during the night and conditions were appalling, with the ground being sodden and heavy with mud.

Alfred’s first six-day tour in the front line commenced on the night of 3rd-4th July, and would be followed by many more such tours, both in and out of the line, for some weeks until the end of September. After the Battle of Loos, in which the 11th Battalion was not involved, the Actions of the Hohenzollern Redoubt saw the Battalion play an important part in operations, and, although it neither attacked the enemy nor was attacked in turn, it was on several occasions able to beat the enemy back to his own trenches.

Over the course of the following months, and the whole of 1916, Alfred’s 11th Battalion continued to see action on numerous fronts and in numerous battles, in particular at some of the Battles of the Somme in the latter half of that year, where they would flounder amidst the mud and filth for which the Somme would become enshrined in history. It was said that “Truly, the Somme battlefields were freely sprinkled with the blood of Middlesex men.”

Essentially, the 1917 Battle of Arras comprised three major battles, known as the Battles of the Scarpe, although there were several other operations as well. Late in March 1917, three weeks of intense bombardment of enemy trenches started up as a prelude to the Battle of Arras, which would commence on 9th April. At 5:30am on ‘Zero’ day, a terrific tornado of shell fire took place which opened up the opportunity for the infantry of the Third and First Armies to sweep across No-Man’s Land like an irresistible tidal wave.

Amongst the men to take part in this operation was Alfred Bradshaw. His 11th Battalion was in the action from the very first day, and was given the formidable task of trying to wrest the very powerfully-defended Observation Ridge from the Germans. As such, it was the first battalion of the Middlesex Regiment to come to grips with the enemy. As ‘Zero’ hour approached Lewis-gun teams crept out into No Man’s Land, taking up selected positions from which to deal with hostile machine guns and snipers should they become troublesome. Five minutes before ‘Zero’ the order was given to fix bayonets. As the thunder of the barrage broke over the German trenches at 5:30am, the waiting troops followed quickly in its train, keeping as close to the screen of fire as possible.

The diary of the 11th Battalion succinctly stated “the Battalion went over the top as practised on the training ground. The artillery work was splendid and never really gave the Bosche a chance.” For three days the 11th Battalion remained in the front line, only being relieved on 12th April. In the First Battle of the Scarpe, the 11th Battalion suffered quite heavy numbers of casualties in killed and wounded, whilst, in the Second Battle, otherwise known as the Battle of Arleux, which took place over 28th and 29th April, it was only in reserve. Despite not being engaged with the enemy, however, the men were kept hard at work digging a new line throughout the two days.

The Battalion’s next engagement would be over the 3rd and 4th May, in the Third Battle of the Scarpe. Starting out in reserve to the Royal Fusiliers in their attack on the first divisional objective - the gun trench named Brown Line - the Middlesex were occupied in carrying out their final duty, which was the clearing of the nearby commune of Pelves. However, the attack by the Fusiliers failed, and they had sustained very heavy losses.

So, after darkness fell on the night of the 4th May, the Middlesex were called upon to occupy some of the trenches that the Fusiliers had previously occupied. But large portions of these trenches were completely unrecognisable, so great had the hostile shell fire been, so a very hard night’s work was put in before dawn broke on the 5th May in order to provide anything like a half decent amount of cover. With the parapet destroyed in many places, enemy snipers were able to go about their lethal work with comparative ease until the necessary repairs could be made, and so, throughout the remainder of the 5th, and on the 6th and 7th May, the defences were gradually strengthened. The men would have been extremely exhausted when they were finally relieved, on the night of the 7th/8th May.

It was at some point during these last few days that Alfred was wounded. His injuries were severe, and he was transported to one of the British Casualty Clearing Stations nearby, most probably the 41st. He succumbed to his injuries a few days later, on 11th May 1917.

Alfred was buried in the Duisans British Cemetery at Etrun, in grave number III. M. 43., along with 3,206 other Commonwealth servicemen of the First World War, plus 88 Germans. His mother chose the words “Fear not for I have redeemed thee I have called thee by thy name thou art mine” as the inscription on the grave. Alfred’s personal effects, amounting to £2 19s. 7d., and a War Gratuity of £3 were paid to father Alfred Snr. in 1919.