David William Kimber (1885-1917)
From Hampshire, served with 1st/9th DLI, killed in action at Arras
David William Kimber (William to his family) grew up in the green fields of Hampshire; he died in the fields of mud of northern France, surrounded by the men of the DLI.
William was born in 1885 in the Hampshire village of Monk Sherborne where his father, David, worked as a farmer. The family of four boys (William was the oldest) were all born and bred in the village, as were his father and his mother, Eliza (nee Usher). William helped out of the farm and later became a farmhand on farms in the Basingstoke area. In October 1909, he married Marion Wilhelmina Aust and 18 months later, they had a baby daughter, Dorothy Marion.
As the fighting in the Great War grew ever fiercer and casualties mounted, new recruits to the Army were no longer automatically enlisted in their local regiments but were placed wherever there was the greatest shortage of men. So it was, that despite enlisting locally in Basingstoke, William found himself assigned as a private in the 1st/9th Battalion Durham Light Infantry (DLI).
In April 1917, the 1st/9th Battalion DLI, part of the 50th Northumbrian Division, was sent into action in the area around Arras in Picardy as part of a diversion, whilst the French armies attacked on the Chemin des Dames. On 23/24 April, the soldiers of the 9th Battalion were ordered to attack at Guemappe. They managed to hold on to the village, repulsing several vicious counter-attacks by the Germans, but at a heavy cost. The battalion lost 40 men in that one action, one of whom was Private Kimber, who was 32 years old.
The body of Private William Kimber was not recovered from the battlefield but his name is commemorated on the memorial at Arras. His name also lives on in the memorial window of Christ Church in Ramsdell, Hampshire.
Birth date: 1885
Death date: 24-Apr-1917
Armed force/civilian: Army
Residence: Bline Lane, Monk Sherborne (ecclesiastical parish of Ramsdell Christ Church 1891 census)
Wyford Lane, Monk Sherborne (ecclesiastical parish of Monk Sherborne All Saints with Pamber St Mary’s and St John’s 1901 census)
8 Sherborne Road, Basingstoke (1911 census)
The Commonwealth War Graves Commission records William’s widow as living at 31 Albert Road, Horley, Surrey.
Employment: Farmhand
Family: Parents: David William Kimber (b 1857), Eliza Kimber (nee Usher) (b 1860)
Siblings: Alfred Kimber (b 1889), Ernest Kimber (b 1891), Maurice Kimber (b 1898)
Wife: Marion Wilhelmina Kimber (nee Aust) (1882-1963) born in Reading
Daughter: Dorothy Marion Kimber (b 1911 in Basingstoke)
Military service:
9/7707 (later 325923) Private, 1st/9th Battalion DLI
Medal(s): British War Medal, Victory Medal
Memorial(s): Arras Memorial, France, Bay 8.
Gender: Male
Contributed by Kelloe Visitor, Trimdon Station
