Regiment: 4th Battalion Royal Sussex Regiment
Service No: TF/200532
Date & place of birth: February 1897, Petworth
Date & place of death: 27 March 1917 (aged 20), Gaza
Alfred was born and grew up in Petworth. His only sibling Albert also died in the war. In 1881, his mother Kate was living in Ilford in the Girls Village Home for Orphaned Neglected and Destitute Girls.
Family background
Private Alfred Walter Adsett was the son of Kate Adsett who was a domestic servant. Alfred had one brother Albert and in 1901 the family was living in Red Lion yard with her mother and stepfather. In 1911 Alfred was a milk boy and he is still living with his step grandfather in Wheatsheaf Cottage North St Petworth. Albert is living with relatives in Pulborough and is at school while their mother is working in Beckenham, Kent where she still is at the time of Alfred’s death.
Military service
Alfred was in the same battalion as Alec Gill and they would have enlisted at the same time, so their military careers would have been similar.
Death and commemoration
Alfred died of wounds on 27 March 1917, aged 20. Presumably he was wounded in the first battle of Gaza which took place on 26 and 27 March 1917. He is also commemorated on the Jerusalem memorial.
Subsequent family history
Alfred’s brother Albert enlisted in Chichester into the 8th Battalion of the Queen’s (Royal West Surrey Regiment) and was killed in action in France 10 July 1918 aged 18. He is commemorated on the Pulborough memorial.