811: Sgt Samuel Moulder (medals; photographs; 'death penny'; postcards; certificates)

Sergeant Samuel Moulder was the grandfather of Richard Brown. He joined the army in 1897, aged 18, in the Second Battalion of Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire Light Infantry. Moulder went straight to war in September 1914. He had been sending cards home, but they suddenly stopped arriving. His sister-in-law wrote to the war office and received a letter in December 1914 saying he wasn't on any casualty lists.

Moulder's pay stopped, which meant his family had to leave their home in Eynsham to live in the Oxford slums. In January 1915 they received confirmation of his death; he had been in a battle at Langemarck on October 22nd 1914. They never found his body, but a friend said he had a bullet through his head. His name is listed on the Menin Gate in Ypres.