David Lewis – London Regiment (Artists’ Rifles), 28th Battalion

Private David Lewis – London Regiment (Artists’ Rifles), 28th Battalion

Early Life and Family Background

1901 Census

David Lewis was born in 1896 in Swansea, the son of John Lewis and Rachel Williams. The 1901 Census shows the family living at Gelly Hill Farm, Penllergaer, where John, aged forty‑six and born in Carmarthenshire, worked as a farmer, and Rachel, also forty‑six and Carmarthenshire‑born, managed the household. Their children at home were Thomas, twenty‑two, and William, twenty, both employed as colliers below ground, along with Albert, seventeen; Jane, twelve; and David, aged five. The household also included a boarder, James Brown, aged twenty‑two, and a servant, Rachel Davies, aged twenty‑one.

1911 Census – A Changing Household

1911 Census

By 1911, the Lewis family had moved to Fuffryn, Penllergaer, where John, now fifty‑four, had left farming and was working as a coal miner hewer. Rachel, aged fifty‑seven, remained at home. Two sons were still present: Albert, twenty‑five, also a coal miner hewer, and David, aged fourteen, who was still attending school. Their long‑standing boarder, James Brown, now thirty‑three, continued to live with the family.

Military Service – Artists’ Rifles

David Lewis later enlisted as a Private in the London Regiment (Artists’ Rifles), 28th Battalion, a unit known for its distinctive character and for supplying large numbers of officers to the wider British Army during the First World War.

David Lewis
St. David’s Church, Penllergaer credit - findagrave

Death From Wounds, August 1917

The inscription on David’s headstone at St. David’s Church, Penllergaer records that he died from wounds on his way home from France on 25 August 1917. His death reflects the fate of many soldiers who survived the front only to succumb to injuries during evacuation or treatment, never reaching the safety of home.

David Lewis’s grave stands today as one of Penllergaer’s earliest First World War memorials, marking the loss of a young man whose life bridged the rural world of Gelly Hill Farm and the industrial and military demands of wartime Britain.