James Smith Steel

Rank 
Sapper
Regiment 
Royal Engineers
Date of death 
17 September 1915
Age of death 
18
Address 
1 Fairfield Cottages
Gordon Road
South Woodford
Woodford
Essex
E18 1DN
Address source 
1911 Census
Cemetery / Memorial 
France
Biography 

Born in 1897 at Woodford, named James Smith Steel, second son of Robert (Dairyman) and Jeannie Steel.

1901: With his family at 2 Woodgreen Villas, Daisy Road, South Woodford. 1911: With his family at 1 Fairfield Cottages, Gordon Road, South Woodford. Family home was later at 2 Gordon Road, South Woodford. Having enlisted in Chelsea, he arrived in France on 7th August 1915.

He was Killed in Action while engaged in extending a communications trench behind the first line trenches in the area of Loos a few days before the battle began.

He was the first regular member of Chigwell Junior Football Club to be killed. His father was a Sergeant with Metropolitan Special Constabulary at the Mornington Road Station in Woodford.

Research by Adrian Lee, Local Historian

Principal Sources:

Ancestry.com

Woodford Times