LANCE CORPORAL WILLIAM HEDLEY FRANK REDGATE
ESSEX REGIMENT
15TH OCTOBER 1917 AGE 35
BURIED: POELCAPELLE BRITISH CEMETERY, BELGIUM
What a lovely tribute from a wife to her husband - unselfish and loveable natured. I'm always very impressed when the next-of-kin say what they want to say rather than feel constrained into saying something conventionally formulaic.
Maude Ethel Redgate had been married to her husband for seven years when he was killed at Passchendaele. At the time of the 1911 census they had no children. However, when Mrs Redgate died in 1957 - 40 years after her husband and still living at the same address - probate was granted to Daisy Beatrice Cant, married woman. I'd like to think this was a daughter.
William Hedley Frank Redgate was a waiter before he joined up. He served with the 10th Battalion Essex Regiment, which, at the time of his death, was in the trenches at Bulow Farm. The war diary for 14 October records that the battalion moved into the line, holding the front from: - V.26.a.2.4 to V.19.d.9.9. The next day, the day Redgate was killed, it simply says, "Holding line. Patrols pushed forward during the night 15/16th Oct. 1917".
Redgate's body was not found until September 1919 at map reference V.25.b.4.7. There were three other members of the Essex Regiment found at the same spot. This looks to me like one of the patrols.