Gilbert Waterhouse

He was killed on the first day of the Battle of the Somme, in World War I, while serving as a second lieutenant in the 2nd Bn Essex Regiment.

At the time of the UK 1901 national census, the family were living in East London, where Gilbert's occupation, aged 18, was given as a ship's draughtsman.

It is not known when he was posted to 2nd Battalion Essex Regiment in France, but National Archive contain a telegram to his father, dated 25 February 1916, stating that Waterhouse has been "admitted to No 3 General Hospital Le Treport 22 Feb suffering from septic left arm, slight."

'On the 1 July between Serre Wood and Beaumont, about 9.30 in the morning, I had got over one German trench and was advancing to a second when I was hit in the back.

I thought at the time he had seen an MG and was avoiding the fire but he may have been hit.’His body was not recovered until after the battle, when he was buried in the CWGC Serre Road No.2 cemetery around July 1917.

Some half a dozen are "trench" poems displaying powers of observation, precise expression and emerging satiric humour.Comment by David Giles Bancroft's School, Head of English (retired) Archived 11 April 2016 at the Wayback Machine One of the more famous poems in the book is "Bivouacs".