Born 5th January 1888 at Winster, Ned as he was known is shown working as a shop assistant aged 13 in the 1901 census. Like his brothers he was a musician and joined the Territorial Force, later to be known as the Territorial Army. Presumably this was with the Sherwood Foresters rather than the Derbyshire Yeomanry as brothers John and Herbert did.

At the outbreak of the war he married Jessica Steele at St Thomas' Church, Derby on 26th August 1914. At some point he transferred to the Machine Gun Corp and would have returned to England for training at Grantham towards the end of 1915 before returning to France for the Battle of the Somme.

A photograph in the album shows Samuel in the uniform of the Machine Gun Corps which was established towards the end of 1915. The crews were a prime target for opposition artillery and mortar fire, a fact bourne out by the following statistic.

A total of 170,500 officers and men served in the MGC, of which 62,049 were killed, wounded or missing.

This was taken from an excellent website on the subject The Long Long Trail

After the war Samuel returned to work as a painter and decorator for the Co-operative Society. It is believed he didn't enjoy the best of health as a result of a gas attack during the war.

He died 10th August 1944 aged 56. The death certificate gives the cause as heart failure due to coronary obstruction.