Edward Henry Patrick – 23 Elm Street

Ted was born in 1895, the second son of John and Mary Ann Patrick of Frisby`s Building (now under the Scotgate car park). Ted was one of 10 children, 5 of whom died in infancy.

Ted’s father, John, worked at Hunt’s Brewery on Water Street but in July 1900, when Ted was only 5, he died of heart failure at only 44 years old.  After this the responsibility to be the family bread winners fell onto Ted’s mother and elder brother John (Jack) who was only 9 at the time.

Mary Patrick obtained work as a laundress at Stamford Infirmary and Jack initially as an errand boy and shoe cleaner at the Oates and Mussons store in High Street. Subsequently Jack got a full time job at the Williamson Cliff brickyard on Little Casterton Road. While working at the brickyard Jack got his right hand caught in a brick press losing two fingers. There was no compensation for such injuries at that time and he said that he was lucky to be offered his job back when he had sufficiently recovered!
Despite his disability Jack got a job as an apprentice iron founder at Blackstone’s engineering works. The 1911 census shows the family at 23 Elm Street, (now occupied by the buildings of Stamford School). Mary was still employed as a laundress and 16 year old Ted had followed his brother to Blackstone’s being listed as an apprentice iron founder.
Mary died at the age of 59 in 1913 and Ted, Jack and their younger brother and sister had to move to a smaller house at 12 Gas Street. From this address Ted joined the Lincolnshire Regiment on 2nd November 1914.

He was medically discharged from the army “permanently unfit for war service” the following summer in 1915 and returned to Stamford to return to work at producing munitions at Blackstone’s with his brother Jack and my future grandmother Evlyn Jane Laughton.
Despite being medically discharged, Ted re-joined the army –  this time with the Sherwood Foresters (Notts and Derby Regiment), in June 1916 where he served in the 17th Battalion A Company. He fought in the battle of Passchendaele. He was killed in the action around Polygon Wood near Ypres on 27th September 1917 when he was 22.

Ted was initially posted as missing and it was not until July 1918 that his death was published in the Stamford Mercury. He is buried at Hooge Crater Cemetery and is also commemorated on the Stamford War Memorial.

E H Patrick – Hooge Crater Cemetery

E H Patrick – Stamford Boys Poppy