HIPKISS, Albert Victor

Albert Hipkiss was the son of the late Joshua, butcher, and Jane Hipkiss of High Street, Brierley Hill. He attended Wolverley Grammar School and before enlisting he was clerk in charge of the Lye branch of Lloyds Bank. He enlisted in the Royal Fusiliers in the 41st Division and went to the Western Front, probably in 1916. They took part in the October phase of the Battle of the Somme and the capture of Gueudecourt. They were stationed in the Ypres sector in 1917 and even before the opening of the Third Battle of Ypres there were casualties in the front line. Private Albert Hipkiss was killed at Damstrasse, along with three fellow soldiers, by the ‘bursting of a shell’ on the 12th June 1917 and is commemorated on the Menin Gate, Brierley Hill and Brierley Hill church Memorials and on his parents’ grave in the church-yard of St. Andrew’s, Netherton.