AFTER a wait of more than 90 years, the final resting place of a fallen soldier from Swindon is to be officially recognised.

Herbert ‘Bert’ Marfleet, who served in the First World War, will be commemorated with a headstone and a rededication ceremony at Radnor Street Cemetery in Old Town.

His resting place, marked only by a kerbstone, had gone unrecognised by the Commonwealth War Graves Commission.

The plot, next to the graves of his aunt and uncle, lay on the edge of the cemetery covered in weeds.

A rededication will now take place some time this year for the volunteer who survived the war, but fell victim to malaria five weeks after returning from service in Greece.

The move follows a campaign by the Friends of Radnor Street Cemetery which began in May 2011.

The group is trying to identify war graves and have them officially recognised, which included two more being rededicated in October.

Mark Sutton, a military historian and a member of the group, had few details about Bert until a chance discovery at the library.

“I was going through some microfiche archives and suddenly I saw an item about the death of a soldier from malaria in 1919,” he said.

“We wrote to the commission with his obituary, death certificate and all the other information we had, and they wrote back and said he should be recognised as one of the war dead.

“He has been given that status and the new headstone is about to go in.”

Herbert Frederick Marfleet was the son of Benjamin James Marfleet, a sergeant in the 2nd Dragoon Guards, and was born in India, in 1891.

By 1901 the family had returned to England, and Benjamin was a railway shop clerk at the Railway Works.

Bert’s apprenticeship as a coach finisher was cut short with the outbreak of the First War World, when he joined with the Royal Army Service Corps.

He served in Egypt, returning home to Swindon in 1917 to marry Elsie Morse. He returned to his regiment in Salonika, Greece and contracted malaria. He was discharged from the army and returned to Swindon in the spring of 1919, but died just a few weeks later, aged 27.

Mark, author of Tell Them of Us, believes Bert deserves to be commemorated because his death was the direct result of military service.

The Friends of Radnor Street Cemetery are running free guided walks around the site on March 31, April 14 and May 30. Visit www.radnorstreetcemetery.org.uk