Alfred Ormerod was born in 1883 to Benjamin, Secretary to a Colliery Company, and Cassandra Ormerod. The 1901 Census records him living with his parents and brother at Sandywood, Pendlebury, Manchester. He attended Manchester Grammar School 1898-1901, and then worked for locomotive builders Nasmyth, Wilson & Co, of Patricroft, and afterwards the engineering department of the coal mining company Andrew Knowles and Son. Deciding instead on a vocational career in the church, he entered Hatfield College in 1911 and gained a B.A. in Theology in 1914. He was about to be ordained by the Bishop of Southwell when war broke out.
With the permission of the Bishop he enlisted at Manchester in August 1914 aged 30 in the 20th Battalion of the Royal Fusiliers (service no. 5404). After three years of fighting, he was killed in France during the Second Battle of the Scarpe, part of the Battle of Arras, on 24 April 1917. The Durham University Journal reported in its December 1919 issue that he was mortally wounded whilst running to bring a stretcher for his Platoon Sergeant who had been seriously wounded. He was hit in the stomach by a piece of shrapnel and died almost immediately.
Private Ormerod is buried at Wancourt British Cemetery. He is commemorated on the Ormerod family grave in Glossop Cemetery, a plaque at Hatfield College chapel, the war memorial and roll of honour at St Augustines Church, Pendlebury and Manchester Grammar School. A younger brother, James Ormerod, had been killed during the Battle of the Somme on 20 October 1916.