PRIVATE STANLEY GARFIELD JENKINS
ROYAL WELSH FUSILIERS
19TH FEBRUARY 1917 AGE 22
BURIED: GUARDS CEMETERY, WINDY CORNER, CUINCHY, FRANCE
Stanley Jenkin's inscription comes from Elizabeth Barrett Browning's beautiful, passionate love poem 'How do I love thee? Let me count the ways'. It was signed for by his father.
Jenkins enlisted on 1 June 1915 and went to France with the 16th Battalion Royal Welsh Fusiliers on 2 December 1915. The battalion was sent first to a quiet part of the line to acclimatise themselves to the trenches before being sent into the front line at Givenchy on 17 February. The next day the British artillery bombarded the German trenches from 8 to 11 pm. The war diary recorded that the enemy's retaliation was 'moderate' and that one soldier was killed. The next day, the 19th, is described as "Very quiet - nothing unusual happened. Enemy fairly active with rifle grenades &c Casualties Pte M Hughes & Ptr SG Jenkins killed".
In civilian life Jenkins had been an engine driver in a colliery in Ogmore Vale, Glamorganshire. In 1911 he was living in Ogmore with his grandmother, Anne Davies, without his parents, as he had been aged 7 in 1901. On his attestation form he named his grandmother as his next of kin and left his money to her in his will.
However, by 1920 she was dead and it was his parents, Evan and Esther Jenkins of Brodawel, Twyn, Garnant, Carmarthenshire, who received his medals, next-of-kin memorial plaque and scroll. To do this they had to fill in Army Form W. 5080 giving the names and address "of all the relatives of the above-named deceased soldier in each degree specified below that are now living". This revealed that all his grandparents were dead and that he had no brothers or sisters.