Gunner, 1817, Albert William VENUS, Royal Field Artillery, 2nd Northumbrian Brigade, was killed at Bellewaarde Ridge, on the 24th May 1915, aged 22.
A German shell hit his battery killing most of the other gun crew. Although the Battalion Diary & the Hull Daily Mail reported his death at the time, he was not officially remembered as a casulaty until August 2014. His name was recently registered with the Commonwealth War Grave Commission records, and added to the Menin Gate, which records 35,000 other missing men, with no known grave.
Albert Venus was born in Hull in 1893. After spending some time in Canada, his family returned to East Yorkshire. He was apprenticed to the Trawler owners Messrs Kelsall, Beeching and Co. and was living in the village of Thorne prior to the outbreak of war. His parents were Alfred Henry and Frances Charity Venus, who lived at 29 Eastbourne Street. His father worked the keel boats between Hull & Doncaster.
Albert’s brother, Herbert James Venus, died at sea at the Battle of Jultland on 31st May 1916. Their married sister, Ethel May was their next of kin and lived at 33 Gee Street. Her Step son, L/Cpl., Sydney Bonewell, of the Imperial Camel Corps, having served for three years in Egypt, died of influenza in Hull, on the 2nd April 1919.
