Potts, Alfred Wesley Sarjeant

BORN WEST BRIDGEFORD, NOTTS, 1891. HULL PAL. PARENTS REV. EDMUND & MRS POTTS LIVED IN NOTTINGHAMSHIRE.
Hull Pals Memorial Post. CORPORAL ALFRED WESLEY SARJEANT POTTS 10/939. Born September 1891 in West Bridgeford, Nottinghamshire, Alfred was the son of the Reverend Edmund Potts, a Wesleyan Minister, and his wife Sarah. What happened to the Reverend is a mystery for the 1901 Census finds Alfred living with his Aunt at 34 Warwick Street, Rotherham. By 1911 he is working for London Joint Stock Bank as a Clerk, and his work must have taken him further north, as when war broke out Alfred was living in Hull. He wasted no time in joining the long uneven lines of September 1914, and he enlisted as one of the original Pals at Hull City Hall. Training in Yorkshire throughout 1915 he shipped for Egypt in December and then the trenches of France the following March. The longer the war goes on, the harder it is for me to tell of the Originals. Alfred had already survived the Somme, Oppy Wood, and helped break the back of the German Spring Offensive. How tragic then to live through all the enemy could throw at you only to be killed by the incompetence of your own army. Alfred was killed in action on 28th June 1918 as the battalion attacked enemy positions around Le Cornet Perdu, and was most likely a victim of British 18-pounders firing short during the initial bombardment which was intended to cover their advance. He was buried at Aval Wood Military Cemetery; he was 27 years old. If the Reverend Potts were still alive, I wonder if his son’s death made him glad of his faith and sought comfort there, or if he questioned why a just God would do such a thing to his son.