JENKINSON SMITH, Herbert [of Worksop]

Herbert Jenkinson Smith in The Borough of Worksop Roll of Honour in the Great War 1914 - 1918

Worksop Guardian, Sissons and Son Ltd

By Helen Fox

Worksop Guardian 4 August 1916

Lance-Corporal Herbert Jenkinson Smith

Further information is now available respecting the death of Lance-Corpl Herbert Jenkinson Smith, the eldest son of Mr and Mrs Herbert Smith, Sunnyside and the Beehive Drapers Stores, Worksop, which was reported in our last issue. The particulars are given to Mr Smith from a comrade, Pte Douglas A Bacon, who was with him at Messrs Morley in Leicester, and enlisted with him. The two were together throughout the war, until the last separation. He says it pains him to have to tell some bad news. “Last Friday (July 14th), the Battalion made an attack, and sometime during the afternoon, Herbert got hit in the right thigh with a piece of shrapnel from a gas shell, but this only scratched him, as a knife in his pocket stopped the missile,” The writer goes on to say that when he saw him sometime after he had been hit, he seemed quite cheerful, and apart from a slight shaking, seemed fairly alright; but later he heard that he had been suffering from the gas and, “just now we have had official news that he had died from the gas. You can’t think how we miss him,” proceeds Pte Bacon, “he was always so cheerful, no matter under what conditions, and he was liked by everyone. You have my deepest sympathy.”

A letter giving similar details, written by Pte Bacon to Mr Richard Morley, head of the firm at Leicester, who employed both lads previous to enlistment, has also been forwarded by Mr Morley to Mr Smith. In this, Private Bacon says, he saw his friend, after being hit, sitting on the edge of a captured German dugout. He seemed a little shaken but very cheerful, and said he was going to the Field Ambulance later on. No one thought he was seriously hurt, and in consequence it came as a great shock to hear that he was dead. It is understood that Lance-Corpl Smith was at the time of his death, acting as the Colonel’s “runner,” a very dangerous occupation.