Samuel Venables Private 43568 - 11th Bn. Suffolk Regiment Killed in action Tuesday 9th April 1918 age 38 No known grave but is remembered on Ploegsteert Memorial, Hainaut, Belgium Samuel Venables was born in early 1880 and baptised 4 th  January 1880 at Gnosall, Samuel was the son of 30-year-old labourer John Venables and Julia nee Tomkinson, about 22, of Coton End. Both had been born in Gnosall. The 1881 census shows the family at Coton End, where John was working as an agricultural labourer and Julia, interestingly, as a grocer. Their four-year-old daughter Julia was already at school. By 1891 the family were at Bromstead, near Bromstead House. John was still an agricultural labourer but Julia has no occupation shown. Samuel was at school, and had younger brothers Joseph and John, and a sister Mary In 1901 the family had moved again to near Wilbrighton Hall. John was still a farm labourer and Samuel, 21, a “waggoner on farm”. A younger brother Joseph and sister Deborah were with them. Samuel’s mother Julia died early 1905. In 1911 John, Samuel and Deborah were living at Moreton; the men were working as labourers. (It looks as though Samuel’s father John died in early 1918.) Samuel enlisted at Newport into the North Staffs Regiment, as Private No. 21510, and later transferred to the Suffolk Regiment, 11 th  Battalion as 43568. He was killed in action  9 th /19 April 1918 and was awarded the Victory and British Medals. He has no known grave but is remembered on Panel 3 of the Ploegsteert Memorial, Hainault, Belgium. The record states “Son of the late John and Julia Venables, of Bromstead, Newport, Salop.”
Ploegsteert Memorial Historical Information The Ploegsteert Memorial commemorates more than 11,000 servicemen of the United Kingdom and South African forces who died in this sector during the First World War and have no known grave. The memorial serves the area from the line Caestre-Dranoutre- Warneton to the north, to Haverskerque-Estaires-Fournes to the south, including the towns of Hazebrouck, Merville, Bailleul and Armentieres, the Forest of Nieppe, and Ploegsteert Wood. The original intention had been to erect the memorial in Lille. Most of those commemorated by the memorial did not die in major offensives, such as those which took place around Ypres to the north, or Loos to the south. Most were killed in the course of the day-to-day trench warfare which characterised this part of the line, or in small scale set engagements, usually carried out in support of the major attacks taking place elsewhere. It does not include the names of officers and men of Canadian or Indian regiments (they are found on the Memorials at Vimy and Neuve-Chapelle) and those lost at the Battle of Aubers Ridge, 9 May 1915, who were involved in the Southern Pincer (the 1st, 2nd, Meerut and 47th Divisions - they are commemorated on the Le Touret Memorial). Berks Cemetery Extension, in which the memorial stands, was begun in June 1916 and used continuously until September 1917. At the Armistice, the extension comprised Plot I only, but Plots II and III were added in 1930 when graves were brought in from Rosenberg Chateau Military Cemetery and Extension, about 1 Km to the north-west, when it was established that these sites could not be acquired in perpetuity. Rosenberg Chateau Military Cemetery was used by fighting units from November 1914 to August 1916. The extension was begun in May 1916 and used until March 1918. Together, the Rosenberg Chateau cemetery and extension were sometimes referred to as 'Red Lodge'. Berks Cemetery Extension now contains 876 First World War burials.