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54136 58th Battalion, Machine Gun Corps
Alfred Hayward was born in Sudbury in 1884, the fifth son of eleven children of George and Ellen Hayward. His father was employed as a cotton dresser and the family lived at 12 Curds Lane (now Weavers Lane). At the age of 17 Alfred was employed as a grocer’s assistant. By 1911 his widowed mother Ellen had moved to Queen’s Terrace in Suffolk Road.
Alfred enlisted in Sidcup, Kent and served with the Rifle Brigade (S/21164) before transferring to the Machine Gun Corps.
It is not known when he transferred to the Machine Gun Corps which was formed on 22 October 1915 in response to the need for a more effective use of machine guns on the western front.
In March 1918 the Germans launched their Spring Offensive. Operation Michael was a vast attack along the whole Somme sector front with the aim to destroy the British Army. The Germans advanced quickly and deeply with heavy losses for the Allies during March and April 1918.
Alfred was killed in action on 24 April 1918. There is no known grave and he is remembered on the Pozieres Memorial, Somme, France. Alfred was awarded the British War Medal and Victory Medal.
A Cross of Remembrance was laid near to his name on the Pozieres Memorial in April 2006 and October 2014. The Memorial commemorates over 14,000 casualties of the United Kingdom who have no known grave of which over 500 are from the Machine Gun Corps.
Alfred is also remembered on the Trinity Congregational Church Memorial which was moved to the United Reformed Church, School Street when Trinity closed. The United Reformed Church closed in 2017 and it is proposed that the memorials from both churches will be relocated to the Sudbury Cemetery Chapel.
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