Reginald Edwin Cecil Ashford

Reginald Ashford was born in Parsons Green, Fulham in 1894. He was the son of Edwin Charles and Mabel Elizabeth Ashford. By 1911 the family was living at 119 Vaughan Road, Harrow. His father, Edwin Charles Ashford, worked as a tailor’s manager. Reginald had an older brother, Aubrey Charles, a younger sister, Edith M., and two other siblings who had died.

Civilian Life - In 1911, when he was recorded as aged 16, Reginald was a scholar at John Lyon School. The research does not identify an occupation for him before his military service, nor does it establish that he attended university. There is also no marriage or children recorded in the research. No newspaper obituary has been found. His connection with John Lyon School is preserved in several memorial records. His name appears on the Harrow-on-the-Hill war memorial and on memorials associated with John Lyon School, including a school plaque and sundial.

Military Life - During the First World War, Reginald served in the London Regiment, Artists' Rifles, 1st/28th Battalion. He attained the rank of Lance Corporal. Reginald served in France and Flanders.

On October 30, 1917, Lance Corporal Reginald Edwin Cecil Ashford was killed during the Second Battle of Passchendaele (part of the Third Battle of Ypres) in Belgium.

The attack was launched at 5:50 am in pitch darkness. Just as the men went "over the top," the German artillery unexpectedly shifted their defensive barrage line directly onto the British assembly positions. The Artists' Rifles suffered terrible casualties in the opening seconds of the battle and immediately lost contact with their own advancing artillery screen. The battlefield had been turned into a swampland by months of shelling and torrential rain. The Artists' Rifles attempted to advance toward a German strongpoint called Source Trench. Men became bogged down knee-deep in thick mud, making them easy targets. Many wounded men tragically drowned in water-filled shell craters. Hidden German concrete pillboxes opened up with devastating, close-range machine-gun fire. During this specific advance, one entire company of the Artists' Rifles was completely annihilated. Reginald has no known grave and is listed on the Tyne Cot Memorial for the missing, he was killed in action during the initial charge or the chaotic shelling that pinned the battalion down all day. In the muddy chaos of Passchendaele, hundreds of bodies could not be recovered or identified. Out of 470 Artists' Rifles who went into the attack that morning, 350 became casualties, with 170 of them killed. Because Ashford has no known grave, his name is commemorated on the Tyne Cot Memorial in West Vlaanderen, Belgium.

At the date of his death, Ashford's parents were living at 37 Salisbury Road, Harrow-on-the-Hill, Middlesex, they were later recorded at 37 Salisbury Road, Harrow-on-the-Hill.

Footnote:- In July 1947, during the post-World War II restructuring of the Territorial Army, the Artists Rifles was reconstituted and renamed as the 21st Special Air Service Regiment (Artists Rifles). The number "21" was intentionally chosen by reversing the numbers of the two disbanded wartime regular regiments, 1 SAS and 2 SAS, to preserve their lineage.