Edmond John Haddock was born in London and worked as a solicitor’s clerk. He was probably in the army before the war and landed in France within its first month. He was killed in action in May 1915 near Ypres. His family home was in Upper Bridge Road. His parents died ten days apart in 1940.
HADDOCK, EDMOND JOHN,
Lance Corporal, 1st Battalion, Rifle Brigade
Edmond has no known grave and is commemorated on the Ypres (Menin Gate) Memorial, Ypres in Belgium, and on the Civic Centre Memorial, Chelmsford. He is not commemorated by the war memorial at St. John’s Church, Moulsham.
The Ypres (Menin Gate) Memorial contains the names of 54,896 officers and men from all the overseas British and Commonwealth forces who fell in the Ypres Salient before 16th August 1917.
Edmond was entitled to the 1914-15 Star, British War Medal, and Victory Medal.
The 1918 register of electors recorded Edmond’s parents and siblings George and Florence at 20 Upper Bridge Road, A street directory from two years later recorded Edmond’s father working as a clerk and resident at 20 Upper Bridge Road, Chelmsford, next door to the corner shop at the junction with Lower Anchor Street. Another directory from 1929 showed Edmond’s brother, Percy, at the address. Edmond’s parents also lived at Montrose, Western Road, Burnham-on-Crouch after the war.
Edmond was born in Walthamstow in 1895, the son of George Walter Haddock and Florence Helen Haddock (nee Snow). Edmond’s father had been born in 1863 in Dalston, London; his mother in 1868 in Irthlingborough, Northamptonshire. The couple had married in London in 1890 and in 1891 had been living in Hackney, London.
Edmond’s siblings were: Florence Selina Haddock (born in 1891 in Hackney), George Percy Haddock (born in 1893 in Walthamstow, died in 1965), Helen Victoria Haddock (born in West Ham District in 1897, died in 1898), Herbert Walter Haddock (born in 1899 in Ilford, died 1975) and Ethel Kathleen Haddock (born in 1902 in Romford, died in 1987).
The 1901 census found six year-old Edmond living with his parents and three siblings at 27 York Road, Ilford. Edmond’s father was a grain merchant. Edmond, aged 16 and a clerk for a solicitor’s, was recorded by the 1911 census living with his parents and five surviving siblings at 52 Gunton Road, Upper Clapton in London. His father was a corn traveller for a corn factor; his brother George was a clerk for a fruit salesman.
Edmond later lived in Walthamstow, and enlisted in London. He served with the 1st Battalion of the Rifle Brigade, a regular army unit, which was at Colchester at the outbreak
of the war. He landed in France on 23rd August 1914, suggesting that he was already in the army before the war. He was killed in action on 13th May 1915 while serving as Lance Corporal 4693 in the 1st Battalion of the Rifle Brigade. He was aged 20.
