MEET the Southend Police officer who lost his life fighting in the trenches of the First World War – and his son who served in the same police force before fighting in the Second World War.

PC Alfred Wilson was killed in Ypres, Belgium on September 20, 1917, at the third battle of Ypres – known as the battle of Passchendaele.

Alfred was born in Billinghurst, Sussex, in 1890. He joined the Merchant Navy as a young adult where he met a nurse, Nellie, who lived in Hanningfield.

The couple married and moved to Southend, where Alfred joined the police. The young couple had two sons, Wilfred (born in 1913) and Emrys (born in 1915) before Alfred enlisted with the 16th Rifle Brigade – part of Kitchener’s Volunteer Army – in December 1915.

Alfred travelled with his unit to northern France in February 1916. In August, the 39th Division were moved south to support Britain’s major July, 1916, offensive on the Somme.

Echo:

Alfred's son, Wilfred Wilson, who also served Southend Police and fought in the Second World War. Pic: Essex Police

During their two and a half months on the Somme, Alfred's division suffered extensive casualties with 50 per cent of officers and 66 per cent of other ranks killed or injured.

The division was withdrawn from the line at the end of November 1916 and didn’t take part in any major action until July 31, 1917, when it fought at the Third Battle of Ypres – better known as the Battle of Passchendaele.

Alfred saw action at Pilckem Ridge in the first engagement of the offensive before the division was deployed in the Ypres area, fighting at Langemark from August 16 -18 and along the Menin Road between September 20 - 25.

It was close to the Menin Road on September 20, 1917, that Lance Sergeant Alfred Wilson was killed. He was 27 years old. His body was never recovered.

One soldier who had been present when he was killed wrote to his wife: “He stopped and sat at the side of the road on an oil drum. There was a loud explosion and I turned round and he was gone.”

Wilfred, Alfred and Nellie’s eldest child, joined Southend Police in 1934. At the onset of World War II in 1939, Wilfred, or ‘Tug’ as he was nicknamed, re-enlisted serving with the 8th Battalion Grenadier Guards in the Western Desert campaign in North Africa, where he suffered a serious leg injury.

At the end of the war, he returned to Southend but was concerned that he may not be accepted back with the police because of his injury, however a sympathetic doctor passes him fit for work.

Wilfred completed thirty years’ service to the people of Southend in 1964 and retired as a Sergeant. He died on August 19, 2005, just two months after his wife, Beatrice.