Today We Remember

Albert Philip WRIGHTON
Service no. 14575

Private, 6th Battalion,
The Queen’s Own (Royal West Kent Regiment)

Family Background

The Wrighton family had been in Aynho since the 1670s. Albert was the son of George and Hannah Wrighton.  George, an estate worker for the Cartwrights, died aged 72 in 1909 after falling 16 feet from a hayrick. Hannah died after the War in 1926. They had six children – the eldest of whom died as an infant.

Albert had an elder sister, Fanny, and three younger brothers, twins, Joseph and Henry, who also died as an infant, and Reginald. It was Albert’s youngest brother, Reginald, who also was killed in the war 5 months after him. The family lived on Brackley Road, now the Charlton Road, in one of the estate cottages.  We don’t know whether Albert was married.

Albert and Reginald were first cousins of Alfred and Clement Wrighton who were also killed in the War.

Albert has surviving relations still living in the village – one first cousin twice removed (Stewart Brown) and one second cousin twice removed (June Alsford).

Quite why Albert joined the Royal West Kent Regiment we do not know, especially when most of the men in the village joined a more local regiments. By the end of the war the Regiment had lost 6,866 men.  And lastly to quote General Sir H. Smith-Dorrien: “I am perfectly certain there is no other Battalion that has made such a name for itself as The Royal West Kents. Everyone is talking about you. They say: Give them a job, they will do it; they never leave the trenches!”

(The uniforms of the Warmington Home Guard in “Dads Army” are of the Royal West Kent!).

Albert has no known grave but his name appears on Bay 7 of the Arras Memorial.