Gilbert Carlyle Mason Prince

Gilbert Prince worked as a bank clerk at the London County & Westminster Bank before leaving his employment to enlist in the Queen’s (Royal West Surrey) Regiment. He was killed in action aged 20 near Méaulte, France, on 24 August 1918, during the Allied advance in the opening weeks of the Second Battle of Bapaume.

Civilian Life - Gilbert Carlyle Mason Prince was born in Willesden, London, on 6 March 1898, the son of George James (an Undertaker's Clerk) and Flora Gertrude Prince. In 1901, the family lived in Ashburnham Road, Willesden, where his father worked as an undertaker’s clerk. By 1911, the family had moved to Hazlemere, Love Lane, Pinner, and Gilbert, aged 13, was recorded as a scholar. After leaving school, Gilbert worked as a clerk at the London County & Westminster Bank’s branch in Hemel Hempstead. He remained in this employment until the outbreak of the First World War, when he left his position to join the Army.

Military Life - Gilbert enlisted at Watford and served as Private 265686 with C Company, 6th Battalion, Queen’s (Royal West Surrey) Regiment, part of the 37th Brigade of the 12th (Eastern) Division. In August 1918, his battalion was involved in the Allied advance during the Hundred Days Offensive.

On 24 August, during the opening weeks of the Second Battle of Bapaume (part of the major Allied counter-offensive known as the Hundred Days Offensive) the 6th Battalion was engaged near Méaulte, south of Albert in the Somme region, advancing across the old Somme battlefields towards German positions. The advance met German machine-gun and artillery fire as the British troops moved forward. The 6th Battalion of the Queen's Regiment was heavily engaged in a rapidly moving push to drive back German forces east of Albert. The battalion was tasked with advancing across the old, heavily cratered 1916 Somme battlefields near the villages of Méaulte and Becordel-Becourt. As they pushed forward to clear tactical high ground and enemy trenches, the advancing British waves were subjected to fierce German rearguard resistance, marked by intense machine-gun crossfire and direct artillery shelling designed to slow down the Allied momentum.

Prince was killed in the field amidst this chaotic forward advance. Because a casualty clearing station and field ambulances were actively operating out of Méaulte to handle the high influx of frontline casualties during this push, his body was successfully recovered from the immediate battlefield and laid to rest at Méaulte Military Cemetery, France, Grave V.F.12. The cemetery is located in the village of Méaulte, just south of Albert, in the Somme department of northern France.

His headstone carries the inscription chosen by his father: “THE BELOVED SON OF GEO. & F. PRINCE FRINTON-ON-SEA, ESSEX, HE YET LIVETH.”