Walter Joseph Brown was born in Little Oakley near Corby in 1891. His parents were George Brown (born Melton Mowbray) and Hannah (nee Pearson) born Honington.

In 1901 the family were living at High Road, Leadenham where George worked as a waggoner.  By 1911 George and Hannah had moved to Fulbeck but Walter was living with his married sister Clara in Gainsborough, where he worked in a maltings. 

Soon after the outbreak of the Great War he answered Lord Kitchener’s call for volunteers and joined 7th Battalion, Lincolnshire Regiment on the day it formed, 11 Sep 1914.  After initial training in Grimsby the unit moved to Dorset and then (May 1915) to Winchester.  On 14th July 1915 they landed at Bolougne and were sent to the trenches in the southern part of the Ypres salient.  In the spring of 1916 they were in action at The Bluff before moving south to the Somme where they fought at Albert and Delville Wood.  In 1917 they moved to Arras and took part in the first and second battles of the Scarpe. 

Cpl Walter Brown was killed by shellfire on 15th May 1917, during the Capture of Rouex, the final phase of the Battle of Arras.  But it wasn’t until September that his platoon commander was able to write to his mother, by which time she’d moved from Fulbeck to Gainsborough, presumably to live with her elder daughter.

Walter has no know grave but it listed on the Arras memorial, as well as the Fulbeck War Memorial.