Papers of Alfred Walter Noel Langrish (1886-1962), 2nd Brigade, Hood Battalion, Royal Navy Volunteer Reserves
From: Letter in the AtticAWNL wrote home from Langensalza POW camp to his wife Florrie and four children Alfred aged 9, Ivy 7 and George 5. Only two letters survive. It seems that the letters are the final ones in a sequence, but this is not certain.
In his letters, Alfred mentions his friend Dick Sheppard who served alongside him and was in the same POW camp. Dick’s wife lived in the same street and AWNL asked Florrie to keep in touch with her and between them to cheer each other up during their difficult times.
The collection also includes a scan of a letter from Buckingham Palace wishing AWNL well on his release.
Creator
Langrish, Alfred Walter Noel, 1886-1962, of PortsladeDate of creation
1905-1918Extent
2 original letters and 7 digital scansAccess
OpenLicense
Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs (CC-BY-NC-ND)Reference number
LIA/19Background information
Alfred Walter Noel Langrish was born on 18 October 1886 at 2 Middle Street, Portslade. He was the eldest son of four children and grew up in lower Portslade close to the canal, school and North Road. As a young man he joined the Royal Navy Volunteer Reserves (RNVR) Sussex Division based in Hove where he won medals for shooting and rowing. He married Florence Horsley (1886-1959), a domestic servant working for a family living in Hove, on Boxing day 1908. The couple had three children, all born before the outbreak of the First World War. They set up home in Albion Street, Portslade but in 1913 they moved to 55 Church Road where they rented a small terraced house in which the couple spent the remainder of their lives. When war broke out in August 1914 Alfred (usually known as Alf) was 28. Being a member of the RNVR he was one of the first men to join the 20-30,000 sailors who had no ship. This group of men became the Royal Naval Division and he became part of the 2nd Brigade, Hood Battalion. Although these men were not attached to ships they still followed the Naval traditions of rank and fought alongside the Army. They received Naval pay, which was slightly better than Army pay. Alfred served in the Gallipoli campaign as a Lewis Gunner and subsequently saw active service in France where he was wounded and taken prisoner in 1918. He was sent to Langensalza POW camp in Germany (now called Bad Langensalza), where he recovered from his wound in the camp hospital. Many of the camp prisoners worked in the local salt mines. After 10 months in the POW camp, the war ended and he returned home. After the war AWNL worked at the engineering firm CVA in Portland Road Hove until he retired. He died aged 76, three years after Florrie, and is buried in Portslade Cemetery. George, his son, remained in the house at 55, Church Road, Portslade, after Alfred's death, and the letters were found when George died in 2003 and passed into the possession of Jan Hamblett (Alfred was her paternal grandfather).
Photo of Alfred Langrish
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