28th Battalion (Northwest) Canadian Infantry
Leonard Herbert Lambley was born in Tetbury on 5 January 1890. He was one of twelve children born to William and Mary Eliza Lambley. His mother died in 1903 and left with a large family his father probably encouraged him to emigrate to Canada, which he did in August 1906, aged 17.
In 1910 he moved to Tacoma, in Washington State, USA and signalled his intention to become an American citizen. He joined the US Infantry and after a year in San Diego, California he spent the next two in the Philippines. In March 1914 he returned to Canada and joined his brother Ernest in Kenora, Ontario, who had found work with the Canadian Pacific Railway
On 12 February 1915 Leonard enlisted into the Canadian Army at Port-la-Praire, Manitoba and on 4 September 1915 sailed for Europe as part of a reinforcement draft for the 45th Battalion. He would later transfer to the 28th Battalion, part of the 2nd Canadian Division. In January 1916 he embarked for France, joining the 28th Battalion in the field on the 21st of that month.
On 20 April 1916 he was admitted to 13th Stationery Hospital in Boulogne, having sustained a gunshot wound to his jaw, whilst in action at St Eloi in the Ypres Salient. He spent a period of convalescence in England before returning to France in July and re-joining his unit the following month.
September 1916 saw him in action on the Somme and on 15 September he suffered a severe gunshot wound to his right leg, which was fractured in two places. After an initial stay in No 1 Canadian Hospital at Etaples he was sent to England and by 8 October was a patient in the Second Southern General Hospital, Bristol. Unfortunately, complications with his wounds set in and he died there on 4 January 1917.
Leonard was brought back to his birthplace for burial in Tetbury (St Saviour) Churchyard. He is commemorated on the town’s war memorial and in the First World War Book of Remembrance housed in the Peace Tower of the Canadian Parliament Building in Ottawa.