ALFRED BARNETT was serving as a Private in The Royal Marine Light Infantry when he died of pneumonia on 3rd October 1918. He was aged 24 and is buried in Swerford St Mary Churchyard.

He was the son of Robert and Emma Barnett, of Chapel Hill, Swerford. In 1991 he was working as a page boy in Moseley, Birmingam. On 16th Juanuary 1912 aged 17 he enlisted into the Royal Marines in Birmingham. After training in Deal he was transferred to the Plymouth division. He joined the battlecruiser HMS Indefatigable (below) in June 1913. When the war began, Indefatigable was serving with the 2nd Battlecruiser Squadron in the Mediterranean, where she unsuccessfully pursued the battlecruiser Goeban and light cruiser Breslau as they fled towards the Turkey. The ship bombarded Ottoman fortifications defending the Dardenelleson 3rd November 1914.He then transferred to the battlecruiser HMS Infexible, which had replaced Indefatigable as flagship of the Mediterranean Fleet, and carried out further bombardment of Turkish positions in the Battle of Gallipoli. He  was then posted aboard the battleship HMS Queen Elizabeth, the only Dreadnouth to take part in the Gallipoli campaign. On 14th May 1915 he joined the pre-dreadnought battleship when she relieved the Queen Elizabeth as flagship of the Dardenelles Squadron. He joined HMS Doris an Eclipse class cruiser built in 1896 in July 1915. He served in the Mediterranean theatre with her until she returned to Plymouth on 1st January 1917. He remained in barracks at Plymouth until 7th August 1917, when he joined HMS Cumberland, an armoured cruiser built in 1903, below. She was assigned to the 5th Cruiser Squadron, conducting patrols against German raiders and escorting convoys.He died of pneumonia on 3rd October 1918. 

Steve Kingsford