Aldbourne Heritage Centre
Rank & Unit Private, Royal Field Artillery
Death 22 Oct 1917, aged about 31
Family Son of Jacob and Hannah Westall, husband of Rosina
Biographic detail Was a farm labourer (1911)
Extra detail Died in action

We have found this article in the Wiltshire Times dated 17 November 1917:

The Price of Freedom

Information has been received by Mrs Westall, York Buildings, Trowbridge of the death in action on October 22nd of her husband.

Gunner C. E. Westall was a native of Aldbourne and was aged 31. He was called to the colours in 1916 proceeding to the Western front in May last. He ahd resided for some two years in Bradford-on-Avon, but on his marriage in January last to Miss Rosina Taylor, he moved to Trowbridge.

The sad news was conveyed in a letter from Rev. A. W. Chute, Chaplain to the Forces who states that Gunner Westall was killed in action on October 22nd. Continuing the writer says:-

He was serving with the guns. The position was a dangerous spot as it was always liable to hostile shelling. On this occasion your husband was resting in a dug-out with several of his companions when a shell burst on the very spot, and breaking through into the place where they were, he and three others were killed. I think it will be some relief to you to know that his death was probably quite instantaneous, so that he was spared any suffering.

I can only say how sorry I am to have to write you this sad news. Your husband had been such a short time with us and it seems hard that he should have been taken like this, but you will satisfaction, perhaps, in some small degree in knowing that he fell while doing his duty, and while serving the cause he knew to be right, and if it was to be, he could not have died more nobly.

We held his funeral, which I conducted myself in a cemetry some seven miles or so behind the firing line. It is a quiet little spot and a cross will be placed to mark his grave.

After giving further details the writer says:-

I think it will help you to hear this blow if you remember that after all, though he is parted from you for a time he is not really dead, but only passed on into a new and fuller life on the other side of the grave.