HAMPTON Henry ‘Harry’
Henry ‘Harry’ HAMPTON
Private 27922, 3rd Grenadier Guards
Killed In Action 27th November 1917, BATTLE OF CAMBRAI
Remembered with Honour on
CAMBRAI MEMORIAL TO THE MISSING, Louverval, France
The Germans buried Harry, but the location was never found.
Born Bampton, Oxfordshire. Enlisted Aldershot.
Before the war, Henry (Harry) who was originally from Bampton, in Oxfordshire, worked at John Jones and Son., The Baker, Castleton, where he met and later married Bessie Maile née Phillips in 1916.
Henry HAMPTON
Bessie was born and brought up in Merthyr and had came to Mumbles to work for her Aunt, who had sold a millenary business in Merthyr and retired to Mumbles.
Their daughter Lousie Hardy (née Hampton) was born in January 1917 and her father was killed the following November.
Bessie, who was a nurse during the first world war, remained in Mumbles after Henry Hampton’s death and married again in 1919, to Ted Southall who was village policeman in Mumbles in the late 20s,30s and 40s.
‘I always had to put my finger on my father’s name, for luck.’
Louie Hardy
Henry HAMPTON'S only daughter, Louie Hardy, recalls:
‘When I was a kid, I went to All Saints Church three times on a Sunday, I was usually early and I always had to put my finger on my father’s name, for luck’
She also revealed that she expressed her feelings at the memorial as her mother had remarried, (not an uncommon occurrence) and her father’s name was not mentioned at home until after the death of her stepfather, Ted Southall, when she was then able to talk about him with her family
Special Competition Prize
In 1917 baby Louie won this silver spoon donated as a special prize by Dr. F. de Coverley Veale, in the Mumbles Baby Show, 'Best Breast Fed Infant', competition
(Mumbles Baby Welfare Association)
Bibliography
Documents: Mumbles Maternity and Baby Welfare Association Reports for October 1917-March 1919 and March 1921-March 1922.