Your message will be forwarded to the last contact details we have, your email address will not be passed on, they can reply to you via this messaging system.
Please scroll down to send a message.
Sergeant Samuel Beecher Horsman
British Army 21st Btn. King's Royal Rifle Corps
from:Scarborough
(d.7th Aug 1917)
Taken from ‘Neath a Foreign sky’ by Paul Allen –
After the battle of Flers the Yeoman Rifles had lost the identity that it had gone into battle with on the 15th September, the replacements for the men lost in the action coming predominately from the London area. Despite its change in character the Yeoman Rifles had soldiered on, and during 1917 had taken part in the Third Battle of Ypres. Perhaps better known simply as ‘Passchendale’, ‘Third Wipers’ had opened on Tuesday the 31st of July 1917 with the so called Battle of Pilckem Ridge, however, during these operations the Yeoman Rifles had played little part, nevertheless, by Saturday the 4th of August the Battalion had been stationed in trenches near to the village of Hollebeke, where during that day the Germans had mounted a ferocious counterattack which, despite suffering heavy casualties, the Yeoman Rifles had managed to beat off. During the following day the Germans had continued their assault a by mounting another two counterattacks which had also been driven out. However, severely weakened by this time, the Yeoman Rifle had been unable to stem a third assault which had eventually seen the Germans getting a foothold in the by then shattered village of Hollebeke.
During these attacks the Yeoman Rifles had suffered many casualties including a Scarborough born ‘Yeoman’ who had been hit in the face by a splinter of enemy shell. This deadly piece of shrapnel had lodged in the soldier’s brain, and despite being evacuated to a Base Hospital at Boulogne the Scarborian had succumbed to his wounds on Tuesday the 7th of August 1917.
Born in Falsgrave during 1887 at No.50 West Bank; C/12137 Sergeant Samuel Beecher Horsman had been the sixth of seven children of Sarah [formally Bilham] and ‘clerk’ Enos Horsman. A pupil of Falsgrave’s Council School, during 1901 the outstandingly bright Samuel Horsman had graduated to Scarborough’s prestigious Municipal School and had remained at ‘The Muni’ until 1905. Having chosen to lead a career in teaching, Horsman had subsequently become an assistant teacher at Scarborough’s Central School for boys. Located in Trafalgar Street West, Horsman had remained at the Central between 1906 and 1907, when he had duly left town to undergo teacher training at York’s St. John’s College. In 1909 Samuel was captain of the first eleven as cricket. Graduating as a fully-fledged teacher during 1909, Horsman had returned to Scarborough to teach at his old Falsgrave School, where he had reportedly especially excelled as a teacher in sports activities.
Along with elder brother Enos, Sam Horsman had also built an enviable reputation as a player with Scarborough’s football team before the war, during the season of 1911-12 Samuel had appeared on forty occasions for the club, thus scoring the highest attendance record of any ‘Boro’ player that year. However, with the coming of hostilities sport had been put aside and the two Horsman brothers had prepared for war.
At the outbreak of war Samuel Horsman had been residing with his widowed mother in ‘The Garlands’, a house located in Seamer Road. Enlisting into the Yeoman Rifles at Scarborough on the 4th of November 1915, Horsman had duly joined the Battalion at Duncombe Park, Helmsley, five days later. With his advanced education it had been obvious that Horsman had been Non Commissioned Officer, if not Officer material, and had soon been promoted to the rank of Corporal and shortly to that of Sergeant.
Taken ill with ‘trench fever’ shortly after the Battle of Flers, Sam Horsman had eventually been evacuated to ‘Blighty’ for treatment and had thus had the fortune to miss most of the horrors that had been experienced by the remainder of the Yeoman Rifles during the winter of 1916/17. However, pronounced fit for duty by May 1917, Horsman had duly returned to war and had rejoined the battalion in Flanders, where the unit had shortly [June 1917] taken part in the Battle of Messines and eventually the start of ‘Third Wipers’
Following the demise of one of Scarborough Football Club’s most respected players at No.13 General Hospital, the remains of Sergeant Horsman had been interred in a large civilian burial ground located in Boulogne’s ‘St. Martin Boulogne’ district just beyond the eastern [Chateau] corner of the Citadel [Haute Ville] known as ‘Boulogne Eastern Cemetery’. Amongst over five thousand casualties that had been interred in this Cemetery during the Great War, the former school teacher’s final resting place is located in Section 4, Row A, Grave 57.
In addition to being commemorated on Scarborough’s Oliver’s Mount War Memorial, elsewhere in the town Samuel Horsman’s name can be found in Falsgrave’s St James Church on a magnificently carved ‘Rood Screen’ memorial which bears the names of fifty former members of the church who had gave their lives during the First World War [including three civilians that had lost their lives during the Bombardment of Scarborough during December 11914]. In addition, Sergeant Horsman, a former pupil of Scarborough’s Municipal School had also been remembered on that School’s ‘Roll of Honour’ that lists the names of over sixty ‘old boys’ who had lost their lives whilst on active service between 1914 and 1918. Originally erected by ‘The Old Scholars Club’, this large memorial is located in the present day Graham School, located in Scarborough’s Woodlands Drive.
