Isaac was born in Ogbourne St Andrews in 1884: In 1911 he was living with his widowed Father John (50), who was the local carpenter, Isaac was a Domestic Gardener.   Isaac enlisted into the army at Marlborough and after basic training, he was initially posted to the Suffolk Regiment with a given Regimental number of 241896, however he eventually ended up with the 2 nd/8 th Manchester Regiment, a 2nd Line Territorial Battalion that was part of the 197th Brigade of the 66th (2nd East Lancashire) Division. He arrived in France in March 1917 and his Regiment was sent to the Givenchy Sector, south of Ypres, the area was mix of old fought over battlefields, littered with old coal fields and mine towers, and by western front standards was classed as quiet.

The Division's first task was to rebuild the flooded and destroyed trenches in the area, creating new communication trenches and lying track for light railways.  By spring 1917 most men would have thought that the Germans would be retiring from the area, due to the lack of activity, apart from the occasional German Minenwerfer barrage and sniper fire.  However on the 1 st April 1917 Isaac John Smith was Killed aged (34), the details of whether this was by enemy action is unknown.   

Isaac is buried at Vermelles British Cemetery, Grave Reference V1.A 4. Pas de Calais, France.  There are now over 2134 First World War casualties commemorated in this cemetery. Of these, 198 are unidentified and special memorials are erected to six soldiers from the United Kingdom, known to be buried among them. This cemetery also contains the graves of 11 casualties of other nationalities.