Samuel Blandford

Story:
Samuel Blandford was born in 1896 in Donhead St. Mary and baptised there on 5th July, 1896. He was the son of James Blandford and Bertha Blandford (née Turner), a Laundress. At the time of the 1911 Census he was single, working as a Gamekeeper and living at Charlton, Ludwell, Wiltshire. He enlisted in Shaftesbury, Dorset, on 31st August, 1914, and joined the 5th Battalion of the Dorsetshire Regiment (Service No. 10289) and on 10th May, 1915 was promoted to the rank of Lance Corporal. He was posted to the Dardanelles area on 1st July, 1915, and, despite being fully inoculated in November, 1914, he died of Enteric Fever in a Military Hospital on Malta on 22nd September, 1915. He was awarded the Victory, British War and 1915 Star medals. He was buried at Pieta Military Cemetery, Triq id-Duluri, Malta (grave id. B.XIII.3). He is remembered on the war memorial at Ludwell.