Bertie or Albert Bertie, which is how his name is recorded on his birth certificate, was born in Enford on the 4th January 1895.   His parents were Andrew Goodship and his third wife, Fanny.

 It would seem that Andrew was quite a character. He was born in 1839 in Calstone, near Calne, was married five times and outlived all his wives.   He died in Pewsey Workhouse in 1927 aged 88 having been admitted following a fall at his home. He had six children with his first wife, Ann and after her death at the age of 33 in 1878 he married Mary Sainsbury, a widow who also had six children.   Mary died in 1893 aged 57. Shortly after Mary’s death Andrew married another widow, Fanny Hurkett, the mother of four children. Fanny died aged 49 in 1902 when Bertie was only 6 years old.   Andrew’s fourth wife, and Bertie’s step mother, was Hannah whom he married in1905.   She was some eight years older than him and she died in 1913 aged 85. In January 1914 he married a fourth widow, Ann Middleton. As a result of his father’s previous marriages Bertie therefore had a large extended family consisting of ten half brothers and sisters and six step siblings.

After attending Enford School for some time Bertie moved with his parents and half sister Louisa from Enford to Easton Royal and on 15th October 1900 he was admitted to Easton School aged five.

 In 1901 the family were living at number 22 Easton Royal and Andrew was working as a ‘Portable Engine Driver’ on a farm.   On 18th October of that year the School Log notes that ‘one boy Bertie Goodship has been continually absent since the Harvest holidays (which had ended on 16th September) from an accident to his hand’. The following week it was noted that he had attended school but ‘his hand is not yet perfectly healed’.

 After the death of his mother in 1902 Bertie’s life became more unsettled. The Easton School Admission Register records on 24th December 1903 that he had ‘gone to Manton’. An entry in the School Log for 4th January 1904 says that

‘Bertie Goodship has left the school having gone to live at Manton’. The Manton School records show that he was admitted there on the same day and was under the guardianship of John Pennels at Clatford.   Just over a year later on 8th March 1905 he was readmitted to Easton School but he must have left again for some reason because he was once again readmitted on 15th October 1906.  

 By 1911 Bertie was a farm labourer living at 52 Easton Royal (a one bedroom cottage) with his father, Andrew, who was by then an Old Age Pensioner, and his fourth wife Hannah.

 Although the plaque in Holy Trinity Church, Easton Royal says that Bertie was in the Wiltshire Regiment he was in fact in the Royal Berkshire Regiment having enlisted at Hungerford. By the middle of June 1916 the regiment was in France in the trenches at Hebuterne which is about 12km south west of Arras. The Regimental diary tells us that on June 19th  ’ the enemy machine guns hardly stopped firing all night’ and there were two casualties one of whom was Albert Bertie who died of his wounds the following day.   He was 21.   He is buried at the Couin British Cemetery.

 Bertie is also commemorated on the Roll of Honour in North Newnton Church.

BERTIE GOODSHIP

The Royal Berkshire Regiment badge

The gravestone of Private Albert Bertie Goodship

Appledore circa 1947 then nos 52- 56