Edward Walker

Edward Walker

72nd Field Bakery, Royal Army Service Corps

Died 1st August 1917, Aged 24

Private E. Walker – R.A.S.C.

Edward Walker, who became a baker in the Royal Army Service Corps, was born at Resthivet, Chapel of Garioch on 9 May 1893. He was a son of Alexander Walker and Jane Middleton who married at Chapel of Garioch in 1878. It seems he came to live in Kincardine O’Neil in 1911 or 1912, joining his brother in the bakery there. 

In 1891, Alexander and Jane were at Resthivet with daughters Annie and Mary aged 12, and 1 respectively, and three sons: Alexander 10, Peter 8, and Robert 5. At the time of Edward’s birth, two years later, Alexander was noted as being a farmer’s son who worked on the farm. In 1901 the family still lived at Resthivet where Alexander was a crofter and farm ploughman, and Edward had two older sisters and one younger. In the 1911 census, aged 17, Edward is described as a farmer’s son working on the farm at Hillhead, Chapel of Garioch, a household which, at least on census night, included his older sister Mary aged 21 and ten-year-old younger sister Beatrice. The same census found Peter Walker, then a “Baker’s assistant” aged 28, at Insch with his wife and two-year-old son.

In the Aberdeen Journal of 10 May 1911 (five weeks after census night), there was an announcement in the agricultural pages that Mr Peter Walker, baker at Premnay and Insch had taken over the bakery business at Kincardine O’Neil. In September 1912, the same newspaper reported that Edward Walker was one of the organisers of a “young men’s annual reunion” in the Public Hall, Kincardine O’Neil (“the first dance of the season and …much enjoyed by all”) at which tea was served by Mr and Mrs Walker, The Bakery, “with their usual good taste”. 

By the time Edward Walker enlisted, he had joined his brother in the bakery, and he continued to use those skills after enlistment, when he was assigned to the 72nd Field Bakery (S4/157489). He died on 1 August 1917 aged 24, while serving in East Africa. 

A lesser-known aspect of the world war, the German East African campaign, centred on German-occupied Tanzania. August 1914 in Europe was mirrored by a German attack in the same month on the neutral Belgian Congo. Under the command of a formidable commander – General Paul Emil von Lettow-Vorbeck – it was intended, as well as achieving German colonial expansion on the continent, to divert men and resources from the Western Front, and did so effectively. August 1917 marked the beginning of a new Allied offensive under the command of South-African Major-General Jacob van Deventer. The war in Africa endured until the German surrender there on 23 November 1918 two weeks after the general cessation of hostilities.

The Aberdeen Journal of 10 August 1917 carried a brief report of Private Walker’s death: “Pte. Edward Walker, A.S.C., who has died, was the youngest son of Mr Alex. Walker, late of Hillhead, Chapel of Garioch. He was 24 years of age, and previous to the war was a baker with his brother Mr Peter Walker, Kincardine O’Neil.

 He is buried at Morogoro Cemetery, near Dar-Es-Salaam in Tanzania.

Sources
Commonwealth War Graves Commission
Soldiers Died in the Great War
Register of births
Censuses 1891, 1901 and 1911
Aberdeen Journal 10 May 1911
Aberdeen Journal 19 September 1912 – young men’s annual reunion
Aberdeen Weekly Journal 8 August 1916 – Mr Walker took over the bakery from Miss Spark who carried on the business following the death of her husband.
Aberdeen Journal 10 August 1917 – notice of death
Same death notice – Aberdeen Weekly Journal 17 August 1917
Wikipedia on the German East African Campaign
Ross Anderson: “The Forgotten Front 1914-18 – The East African Campaign (Tempus Publishing Limited 2007)