From the local Kingston Newspaper:

Date unknown but sometime in September 1916

"SERGT. JOHN STEDIFORD*

Sergt. Stediford of the East Surrey Regt. had been six years in the Army at the time war broke out, and was one of what might be called the veterans, whose ranks are being thinned rapidly by death and wounds, for he was in the battalion of the East Surreys that left Dublin for Mons when war was declared, and he had seen a good deal of hard fighting on the Western Front since. He fell with his face to the foe in the same action in which Corpl. Dwyer V.C made the supreme sacrifice.

Two of his fellow-non-coms, Sergt. W.A Woodman and Corpl. G.Hedges, have written to his parents and described how he met his death. The battalion had been ordered to take the third enemy trench, and Sergt. Stediford mounted the parapet at the head of his platoon when he was hit in the throat by a bullet from a machine gun and died almost immediately.

Roy Hewitt writes:

John Stedeford and Corporal Edward Dwyer VC (see next page) died during the Battle of the Somme in the action between Guillemont and Wedge Wood which took place between the 3rd and 6th of September 1916.

1/ East Surreys were part of 95 Brigade, 5th Division. Their companion battalions in 95 Brigade were 1/Devons, 12/Glosters, 1/Duke of Cornwall Light Infantry. During the battle 95 Brigade was in a support role. On the 4th of September, 1/East Surreys took over the sunken road south from Guinchy to Wedge Wood. This was the day on which Edward Dwyer was killed in action.

Guillemont and Wedge Wood

Later,  A & C Companies took Valley Trench. The battalion moved in to support at Leuze Wood and this was the action in which John Stedeford was killed on 5 Sep 1916. The surviving members of the battalion were relieved on 6th September 1916.

THE SOLDIER 

by Rupert Brooke

Killed in action 1915

If I should die, think only this of me:
That there's some corner of a foreign field
That is for ever England. There shall be
In that rich earth a richer dust concealed;
A dust whom England bore, shaped, made aware,
Gave, once, her flowers to love, her ways to roam,
A body of England's, breathing English air,
Washed by the rivers, blest by suns of home.

And think, this heart, all evil shed away,
A pulse in the eternal mind, no less
Gives somewhere back the thoughts by England given;
Her sights and sounds; dreams happy as her day;
And laughter, learnt of friends; and gentleness,
In hearts at peace, under an English heaven.

Thiepval Memorial Cemetery