The Frenchman

​In August 1917, Mrs Danzanvilliers living at 636 Garratt Lane, Lower Tooting, London, received a parcel of her late husbands effects, taken from his body when he was killed near Vlamertinghe, west of Ypres in Belgium.
French by birth, her husband, Louis Marie Joseph Vital Danzanvilliers was killed on 13th July 1917. He had been born in Paris but was brought to London when he was three years old by his parents who came to work in the hotel trade.
When Louis grew up, he followed them into the same profession, becoming a hotel porter. His wife, Caroline, also worked in the hotel trade as a laundry maid.
At 5ft. 2ins tall, Louis was an early member of the 12th Battalion, suggesting that perhaps he had already been refused military service before on account of his height. Aged 39, he was certainly not the oldest soldier in the Battalion, but he must have been one of the eldest, for in the first few months of their creation, the Battalion suffered with many mothers claiming back their sons who had illegally signed-up underage.
Danzanvilliers was certainly not serving with 12th Suffolk when he met his end. The Battalion were on the 13th, in the front line near Villers-Guislann, south of Cambrai, almost eighty miles away. The 'Frenchman' as he is known locally in Belgium (on account of his unusual surname), attracts many visitors to the secluded Vlamertinghe New Military Cemetery, where he now rests.

With grateful thanks to the Summerstown182 website;
https://summerstown182.wordpress.com/2014/03/08/the-frenchman/

---