Albert Nankivell was a driver with the New Zealand Field Artillery. He had been born in Christchurch in 1892 and brought up initially in Belfast, where he and his brother attended Belfast School. Hhis family then moved to New Brighton. Prior to his enlistment in August 1915, he had worked as a machinist at the Addington Railway Workshops and was described as a “keen footballer”. He was posted to service on the Western Front in 1916, and as a result of the severe winter of 1916-1917 contracted influenza late in January 1917. His condition worsened, and despite being admitted to hospital in Boulogne, he died of cerebro-spinal meningitis on 27 February 1917 and was buried in Wimereux Cemetery in the Pas de Calais in France.
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