Captain Alfred George Hayman (1884-1916) lived in Wickhamford in 1912 when the banns for his marriage were read at Wickhamford Church. He may have been a farm student at Field Farm, working for Benjamin Carter in 1911/12. He is commemorated on a War Memorial outside of the Church of St Mary Magdalene at Great Elm, near Frome, in Somerset.
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Alfred was a son of dentist Alfred Hayman and his wife, Ellen Dorothy. He was born in Clifton, Bristol on 26th February 1884. He was living with his family in Elm, Somerset in 1891 and was a student in Oxford in 1901.
He does not appear in the 1911 census, but Banns for his marriage to an American, Marjorie Vivian Mary Butt, of Walford, Herefordshire, were read in Wickhamford, church in 1912. Soon after their wedding, in her parish on 20th March, they emigrated to Calgary, Canada on the Empress of Britain, arriving in St John, New Brunswick on 31st March 1912. The reason for his residence in Wickhamford parish when the Banns were read in 1912 is not known but, on his return from Canada in 1915, he is listed in the ship’s manifest as a farmer. He may have been a farm student at Field Farm, working for Benjamin Carter in 1911/12 as Mrs Emily Carter was the younger sister of Alfred's father.
Alfred Hayman held a commission in the Welsh Regiment from 1906 until his marriage in 1912. On the outbreak of War he enlisted in the Canadian Mounted Rifles, but returned to Britain, arriving in Liverpool on 17th July 1915. He was recommisssioned as a Lieutenant in the Welsh Regiment on 19th September 1915, serving in France and Flanders from February 1916. Captain Hayman was killed in action while leading his company at High Wood in the Battle of the Somme on 9th September 1916. He is buried in Caterpillar Valley Cemetery, Longueval, France.
He was posthumously awarded the Military Cross for keeping his men together for a week under intense shell-fire and, although wounded on the first day, refused to be sent back for treatment.
In probate records, he was described as of Cromarty, Elmsleigh Road, Weston-super-Mare, at the time of his death. His name does not appear on the Weston-super-Mare war memorial.