About Albert

Lance Corporal Albert Boyd 4139

This website is all about Albert, the young Presbyterian drummer boy who joined the Inniskillings just before the war started.

From India he travelled to Egypt and in 1915 was at the landings at Gallipoli. There he waa captured but managed to escape. From there he was sent to the western front and was involved in many battles as many of the Irish regiments were.

In 1917 he was gassed and wounded and sent to hospital in England.

In 1918 at Passchendeale he was wounded again and left for dead. But for a German officer he would have died. He recovered in a German hospital where the surgeons save his life and was then sent to a prison camp. For him the war was over.

After the war I don’t know if Albert was still in the army as he was a regular soldier. In 1930 he married Agnes Doherty from Inch Island, County Donegal.

They had 11 children but in 1956 his wife Agnes died.

They lived at Inch Island for a while then moved to the Moss Road in the country outside Derry.

During World War Two when Messines park was bombed Albert was there to help people out of the rubble and help dig the dead out.
Albert was the man people got to wash the corpses in the Moss.

Albert lived with us for the rest of his life.
Albert was a very proud man, a soldier of the First World War, a man who loved boxing and football, and he was very particular about his appearance especially his clean shirts.

Albert Boyd the Drummer Boy from Rosemount.