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Wilfred Lockwood was born in the Summer of 1918, the son of John William Lockwood and Martha Hannah Dunford, who married in Ossett in 1913. There were three other children: Norman Lockwood, born in 1915; Marian Lockwood, born in 1916 and Eveline Lockwood, born in 1921. Sadly Eveline died in 1923 aged only one year.
In September 1939 Wilfred’s parents and siblings were living at 20 Park Street, Park Square. The household comprised his father, a hewer, John William (born 11th June 1888), mother Martha (born 25th June 1890 ) and siblings Norman L. (born 3rd March 1915) a dairyman on own account formerly farm hand) & Marian an office clerk (born 28th June 1916). Marion later married Harold Campbell Ramsden (1914-1990). It is likely that Wilfred had been called up since he does not figure in the 1939 Register.
Wilfred Lockwood married Phyllis M. Newton, a hand presser for a hosiery manufacturer, in Ossett in early 1942 and a son Richard Lockwood was born in 1943. Phyllis was the daughter of Albert Newton, a colliery hewer ; the couple lived with her family at 18 Moorlands Avenue Ossett. They had a son Richard Lockwood born 1943.
Wilfred is recorded as being in service in the Middle East theatre of war but he died in Germany. CWGC records that he his first grave was at Achim, Germany and that Wilfred was re-buried at Becklingen on 28th September 1946; 3 months after his death. It’s not known why he may have been close to Achim in 1945. Achim is 50 miles from Becklingen.
Wilfred Lockwood died on the 30th June 1945, aged 26 years, just after the end of the war in Europe, and is buried at grave reference 8. H. 1. at Becklingen War Cemetery, Germany. The small village of Becklingen lies in the north of Germany approx 85kms north of Hannover.
He made his Will two years earlier on 27 June 1943, in the event of his death leaving his property and effects to his wife Phyllis M. Newton of 18 Moorlands Avenue, Ossett.
Wilfred Lockwood’s Last Will & Testament 27th June 1943.
The site of Becklingen War Cemetery was chosen for its position on a hillside overlooking Luneburg Heath. Luneburg Heath was where, on 4 May 1945, Field-Marshal Montgomery accepted the German surrender from Admiral Doenitz.
Burials were brought into the cemetery from isolated sites in the countryside, small German cemeteries and prisoner of war camps cemeteries, including the Fallingbostel cemetery, within a radius of about 80 kilometres. Most of those buried in the cemetery died during the last two months of the war.
Becklingen War Cemetery contains 2,374 Commonwealth burials of the Second World War, 97 of them unidentified. There are also 27 war graves of other nationalities, many of them Polish.2
Wilfred Lockwood is remembered by his name at The Ossett War Memorial alongside his brothers and sisters in arms.
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