BORN HULL 1883. HULL PAL. SON OF THOMAS COLBRIDGE & SARAH ANN FARMERY. MARRIED 24/7/1904. WIFE ALICE ELEANOR AND FIVE CHILDREN LIVED AT THIS ARMY RECORDS ADDRESS. EX RULLYMAN. ENLISTED 22/12/1914. SERVED IN EGYPT. ARRIVED IN FRANCE ON 08/03/1916. KILLED AT SERRE, ON 13/11/16, AGED 33. HIS WIFE DIED SOON AFTER AND BY 1921 THEIR CHILDREN WERE LIVING IN HESSLEWOOD SEAMAN’S ORPHANAGE. HIS NAME WAS RECORDED ON THE WAR MEMORIAL AT ST THOMAS CHURCH, CAMPBELL STREET, WHICH WAS DESTROYED IN AN AIR RAID DURING WW2.
Before the war, Wilfred worked for the Aire & Calder Navigation company. He was First Mate to his father who was Captain of a cattle ship from Hull to Gibralta. Wilfred had his Captain’s papers, but preferred to work for his father. He married Alice Hardwick at Holy Trinity church and had 5 children. He enlisted on the 22nd December 1914 and was billeted at home until his battalion moved to South Dalton. He served in Egypt and on the Western Front where he was killed at Serre. On 11th July 1918, his wife Alice died of bronchitis, aged 32. The five children were placed in the Hull Seamans and General Asylum on Spring Bank, Hull.
Hull Pals Memorial Post. PRIVATE WILFRED WALDERMAN FARMERY 12/1258. Born in 1883, Wilfred was the youngest of seven children to Thomas and Sarah Farmery of 2 Villa Terrace, Barnsley Street, Hull. A Keelman by trade he married Alice Hardwick on 24th July 1904 and the couple lived at 86 Clifton Terrace, Courtney Street, Hull with their five children Muriel, Hilda, Jessie, Frank and Wilfred Jnr. He enlisted at City Hall on 22nd December 1914 joining the 12th Battalion East Yorkshire Regiment, 3rd Hull Pals. Wilfred was killed in action on 13th November 1916 during the last desperate act of the catastrophic Somme campaign; his body was never recovered and his name is commemorated on the Thiepval Memorial- he was 33 years old.
Private Surfleet had got lucky that day. It was decided a skeleton force be held back to form a core for new recruits should the worst happen and the battalion be decimated. He tossed a coin with with Charles Bell who lost and went off to his death.
