Source: Michael Doyle Their Name Liveth For Evermore: The Great War Roll of Honour for Leicestershire and Rutland.
He was the son of John and Susan Wakefield. Before the outbreak of war he had been engaged working with his father on a small holding, enlisting in the 7th Battalion of the Lincolnshire Regiment. He embarked for France about March 1915 and had been wounded on the Somme, he was killed during the great German attack on the 21st March 1918, when he received a bullet through the head. A comrade in a letter to the Reverend J. Scott Ramsey, wrote:- “I was wounded myself at the time. I happened to be in the same trench as him when I was hit. After I had laid where I was wounded for some time, I managed to crawl a little further along the trench in search of water for myself and a comrade who was also wounded. The first one I saw was Corporal Wakefield lying dead in the bottom of the trench, having been shot through the head. I saw he was quite dead, as I tried to move him, but got no answer, so I took his water bottle which happened to be full, and crawled back to my comrade as best I would.”