No. 636425, 50th Battalion Canadian Infantry, Alberta regiment, who died on 19th November 1916 aged 19.

Victor has no known grave and is remembered at the Vimy Memorial.

Victor was born Badingham in 16th November 1897, son of Alice Pollard.

He died during the Battle of the Somme during the Battle of the Ancre.

Before the war he had been a ‘Stock Boy on Farm’, but had subsequently emigrated to Canada.

Personal details

Victors’ mother was Alice E Pollard [B. Swinton, Yorkshire in 1877]. His father’s identity is unknown.  Alice’s parents were Alphonso and Emma Pollard from Brundish and Cratfield respectively, though they were resident in Hasketon for the 1911 Census when Victor was living with them, aged 13.   Alphonso was a Farm Bailiff who seems to have spent most of his life in Suffolk, but also lived in Swinton, Yorkshire when Alice was born. According to the 1891 Census it appears that Alice, now aged 14, is back in Swinton, working as a servant at 79 Fitzwilliam Street.

Victor appears to have had an unsettled childhood, living as a 3 year old boarder in Stradbroke with Thomas and Emma Cracknell in 1901, or his grandparents in 1911 aged 13.  At the same time his mother Alice is recorded working as a housekeeper in Islington in 1901 and in Hampstead in 1911.  Victor emigrated to Canada in 1913, departing from Liverpool on 6th December 1913 on the ‘Victorian’.

Further investigation revealed that another of his aunts, Nellie May Pollard, had married Arthur Peck in Jan quarter 1909, and the family emigrated to Canada in March 1913. Perhaps Eric decided to join them in the hope of greater opportunities. His aunt Nellie was listed as his next of kin on his Canadian attestation papers.  He joined up on 20th January 1916. Later his service record states his mother as Alice, a resident of Manor Farm, Hasketon.

He was a nephew of Alfred Percy Pollard (his mother Alice was one of Alfred’s sisters.)

War service.

Victor signed up for the Canadian Overseas Expeditionary Force on 20th January 1916, initially joining the 80th battalion, but later moved to the 50th Battalion.  

He arrived in England on the SS Baltic on 29th May 1916 and proceeded to France on 10th August 1916. 

The 50th Battalion formed part of the 4th Canadian Division which fought at the Battle of the Ancre, one of the final engagements of the wider Battle of the Somme. They attacked the German trenches just south of Grandcourt and initially found little German resistance, but later took losses from flanking fire and were forced to partially retreat.  Victor was reported as missing on the following day, and assumed to have died   during this action.   The Canadian Army circumstances of Death Register reports this occurred in trenches north east of Courcelette.