838085 Pte. Samuel Albert Hanson was born in the London suburb of Dulwich, England, on October 30th, 1896.
Immigrating to Canada with his family in 1906 they eventually settled in the town of Meaford, Ontario. Samuel was the eldest son of Joseph and Harriet Hanson's four children.
Samuel was working as a bookkeeper and stenographer when he joined one of the two independent rifle companies being raised for overseas service by the 31st Regiment. Already under arms all the men of these two companies were transferred to the 147th (Grey) Battalion when it was authorized. Nineteen year old Samuel attested to the 147th BN on November 29th, 1915. With no military infrastructure to house so many men, Samuel was billeted locally over the winter, until the unit left for centralized training at Camp Niagara in May. As the conditions in this Camp were wanting the unit was moved to the new training facility of Camp Borden in late June. It wasn't until late September that the unit finally received its orders to proceed overseas. After a short leave period the unit left Camp Borden by train on October 6th. Destined for the Port of Halifax the unit was detained in Amherst, Nova Scotia, for over a month when a number of soldiers contracted diphtheria. It wasn't until after the unit received a clean bill of health that it boarded the H.M.T. Olympic (sister ship to the infamous Titanic) and sailed for England on November 14th 1916.
On January 1st, 1917, the 147th Battalion ceased to exist when it became the nucleus for the 8th Reserve Battalion, whose task it was to supply reinforcements to a number of units in the field including the 4th Canadian Mounted Rifles. Private Hanson was taken on strength of the 4th C.M.R. on April 21st, 1917 during the ongoing Battle of Arras, where the Canadian Corps had already taken Vimy Ridge.
After the Armistice and still in Mons with the 4th C.M.R., Samuel found an empty flour bag in that city's vacated Professional School. The bag had once been part of a shipment of flour from Grey County, Ontario, sent in support of the Belgium Relief Fund. Now empty of its contents it had been reworked and decorated as a thank you to the people of Grey. Unfortunately, due to the embargo during the war, it was never sent. That is until Samuel mailed it home to Meaford.
838085 Private Samuel Albert Hanson was struck off strength of the Canadian Expeditionary Force on March 20th, 1919, having come through it all without any physical wounds.
Upon his return the one-time bookkeeper took advantage of the Soldier's Settlement Act, and tried homesteading in Alberta. For whatever reason Samuel would return to Ontario, where he found a job as a Customs Officer. Settling in Galt, he married Kathleen Wall there in 1941. Samuel Albert Hanson would pass away in 1980 and be laid to rest in Mount View Cemetery, Cambridge, Ontario.
Credit and many thanks go George Auer for the above biography.