2nd Lieutenant, 14th Battalion Cheshire Regiment.
Killed in action 9th April 1916, age 25.
Remembered on the Basra Memorial, Iraq.
Former student of textiles.
Gilbert was born in 1891 at Salford, to Alexander Simcock, of Sale,who was a salesman. He was educated at Stockport Grammer School and at 18 he enrolled at The Tech while working as a Junior Clerk with The Badische Co Ltd, Colour Manufacturers of Samuel Ogden Street, Manchester. He entered Manchester University in 1911 as a Cheshire County Scholar to study Applied Chemistry, and in 1914 was awarded BSc Tech. Div. II (Textile Industries).
A member of the Manchester University Officer Training Corp from October 1912 to 1914 Gilbert was gazetted to 14th Battalion Cheshire Regiment on 27th January 1915. On 9th September 1915 he married Abbie Beatrice Patterson at St. Ann’s Church in Sale shortly before going to Gallipoli where he took part in the evacuations of the peninsula. His unit proceeded to Mesopotamia and was part of the Kut Relief Force. He was reported wounded and missing after an action at Sinnaiyat in April 1916.
Gilbert left effects worth £187 16s to his father, by then a shipping merchant manager, and Thomas Mulholland Patterson, a retired police inspector.