MAIDEN, Joseph

Joseph Maiden was born in Brierley Hill and attended the South Street Brierley Hill Baptist Sunday School from the age of three. He volunteered for the South Staffords Territorials , possibly before the war and served in the 1/5th Battalion in the 46th (North Midlands) Division. They went to the Western Front and had their first experience of battle at Loos in the attack on the Hohenzollern Redoubt on the 13th October 1915. Losses were huge and the experience was repeated when they attacked on the 1st July at Gommecourt, the first day of the Battle of the Somme. Joseph Maiden was promoted to Sergeant at some point and the Staffords remained in the same area. They were engaged during September and October in raids on enemy trenches and, perhaps, in such a way Sergeant Joseph Maiden was wounded and died of wounds. He was 23 years of age and is buried in Warlincourt Halte British Cemetery, Sailly, (3 C 1) and commemorated on the Brierley Hill and Brierley Hill church Memorials. Joseph Maiden was highly regarded in Brierley Hill and in a later service of commemoration at the Baptist church a photo portrait of Sergeant Joe Maiden was unveiled by Lt. Quartermaster John Allden of the Staffords Territorials with the following inscription: Toll for the brave, the brave who gave, Their homes, their lives, their friends to save, Laid down their lives that we might live, What nobler offering could they give?