THE FORGOTTEN FALLEN
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HERBERT WILLIAM MING Private 15996 1st Battalion, Grenadier Guards
Killed in Action aged 21 13th March 1915
No Known Grave but commemorated on Le Touret Memorial, Bethune, Pas de Calais, France
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Herbert William Ming was born in Weedon in the spring of 1894 and his birth registered in Aylesbury. The 1901 census shows him as the elder son of Tom and Annie Ming and the family living at 5 Providence Place. His older sister Vera married Leonard Halsey in 1917, and he was killed in 1918. His father worked with horses on a local farm and as a Waggoner. In the 1911 census, Herbert is working as an Assistant in a Grocers Shop. Tom and Annie had another son after Herbert was killed and they called him Herbert Arthur James but sadly he died in December 1918 and is buried in the churchyard in Weedon. The Ming family can be traced back to the 1800s with Thomas’s grandfather marrying Elizabeth Fipkin in 1822 and their son William marrying Elizabeth Simonds in 1861. Thomas was their first son, and he married Herbert’s mother Annie Arnold in June 1889. Herbert and William George were first cousins once removed.
The Memorial in Le Touret Cemetery lies 6 kilometres north of the town of Bethune on the main road to Armentieres, in the Pas de Calais. This area lay close to the front line and was occupied by fighting units from the start of the war until March 1918, when it passed into German hands for five months. It was mainly used by the Guards Divisions and Indian Corps during the Battle of Festubert. This impressive Memorial takes the form of a loggia surrounding an open rectangular court which is enclosed by three solid walls and on the eastern side by a colonnade which is itself extended southward forming a long gallery. Small pavilions mark the ends of the gallery buildings with the graves of 890 British and 20 Commonwealth soldiers spread all around the structure. Three Memorial Panels list by Regiment the names of 13,373 soldiers of the British Army who fell on the battlefields of La Basse, Neuve Chapelle, Aubers Ridge and Festubert before 25 September 1915. The memorial was not finished and dedicated until 1930. Herbert’s name can be found on the panel of the Grenadier Guards. |
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GO TO Forgotten Fallen list for more biographies of the men commemorated on the Weedon War Memorial.
