Lieutenant Wilfred Herbert Everard NIELD (1910)

11th (Service) Battalion, Royal Fusiliers (City of London Regiment)
Born 16 February 1891 in Tottenham Green, London
Killed in action 1 July 1916, aged 25
Buried at Dantzig Alley British Cemetery, Mametz, France. Also commemorated on the Westminster Hall war memorial, London; and on a plaque in All Hallows Church, Tottenham.

Wilfred Nield was the elder son of Sir Herbert Nield, KC, MP for Ealing 1906-18, and his first wife Mary Catherine, née Baker, of Bishop’s Avenue, East Finchley, London.

He was educated at Stanmore Park School, Middlesex, and Winchester College—where he was a House Prefect and a promising long-distance runner—before coming up to Merton in 1910. At Merton he commanded the college contingent of the Officers Training Corps. After leaving Oxford he went to Germany to learn the language and then to France to prepare for the entrance examination for the Diplomatic Service; he was there when war was declared.

He obtained a commission in September 1914, and was made Lieutenant in February the following year. Wounded whilst serving in France in December 1915, he returned to the front in May 1916.

He was killed in action at Mametz, on 1st July 1916, the opening day of the Battle of the Somme. He had managed to cross some way over No Man’s Land when he had been struck by a shot which completely severed his left wrist, but he refused to go back to the dressing station. Having had his handkerchief bound round the wound, he continued to advance, until another shot struck him in the leg and made further advance impossible. He was then carried and placed with other wounded men in a deep shell hole nearby. A few moments later a 5.9” shell burst in the hole and killed all its occupants.