Born in Manchester in 1896, the eldest of five children. At the outbreak of WW1, Sampson was resident in Lausanne, Switzerland, where he had completed his education and was a junior director for a firm of clock makers.

He returned to England and entered the Inns of Court Officer Training Corps, was commissioned into the King’s Own (Royal Lancaster) Regiment and in mid-1915 was sent to the Western Front.

He was twice wounded, first in early 1916 and then in May 1917 at the Battle of Arras, from which he developed trench fever. The condition, which he never fully recovered from, necessitated his return to England, on attachment to the Ministry of Munitions. While in England, there was a recurrence of his fever, followed by pneumonia. He succumbed to the infection in July 1918.

The Arras offensive began on 20 March 1917, when hundreds of British guns opened fire around Arras. Then on 9 April 1917, British Empire forces launched a major offensive. By the end of the offensive on 16 May, some 300,000 men on both sides were wounded, missing or dead.

"I think my mother suffered a lot because her eldest son had died in the First World War and so she wasn’t really interested in me. Sam was the eldest of my siblings. He died in 1918 after having been wounded in the First World War. He was in a hospital in Manchester and then caught the ‘flu; an epidemic which killed many people at the time. He had fought in the War from the age of 17 until he died at the age of 21."

" After Sam died Annie never mentioned him, even though he was her favourite child. I think in those days people didn’t talk about their feelings. Everything was kept quiet. They talked about more everyday things."

"In those days the song everyone was singing was “Peg o’My Heart”, which is a lovely song. One day when Sam was home on leave he said to call me Peggy and so my mother did from then on."