George Frederick Bevins was born in Sparkhill, Birmingham on 11th June 1896. His father, Henry Sharpe Bevins (1863-1920), was a builder and contractor, born in Birmingham. His mother, Emily (née Payne) was born in Monkspath (according to the 1891 census) or Hockley Heath (according to the 1901 census). The couple had married in 1888 and went on to have nine children, of whom one had died by 1911, and three sons died in the war.
19th June 1915
25-year-old regular soldier, Corporal Adam Edgar, died on 19th June 1915 serving with the 2nd Battalion, Worcestershire Regiment. On the same day, Private William Albert Birch was killed in action serving with the 4th Battalion, Worcestershire Regiment.
16th June 1915
19-year-old Frank Ferris died on 16th June 1915 whilst serving as a Private with the Wiltshire Regiment. Born in Hockley Heath, he was baptised at St Thomas’s Church, Nuthurst Lane, Hockley Heath, although the parish register entry is a little confusing.
He is recorded in the parish register (available on the Ancestry website free of charge from library computers) as being baptised on the 18 Nov 1894 [sic], aged 5 months. His siblings George (aged 6), Charles Henry (3 years 11 months), Esther (2) and John (aged 9) were all baptised on the same day as Frank. However, there is a registration entry on the General Register Office (GRO) indexes for Frank’s birth in Mar qtr 1896 so the baptism entry may be an error – the entries were all added in in 1898 with a note saying they had been omitted from the register at the time.
10th June 1915
Former railway clerk William Brough Berry Harrison died of wounds in France on 10th June 1915, aged 20, serving as a Corporal with the 1st/7th Battalion, Royal Warwickshire Regiment.
He was born on 17th October 1894, the third and youngest child of bricklayer’s labourer Leonard Lovelace Beverley Harrison (known as Beverley) and his wife, Emma (née West) who had married on 30th May 1886 at St Alphege Church, Solihull at which time the groom was aged 30 and the bride was 21. The newly-weds set up home at Elmdon Heath, where their two eldest children, Florette Annie and Alfred, were born in 1887 and 1889 respectively. At the time of Alfred’s baptism on 14th April 1889 the family was living at Lugtrout Lane, Catherine-de-Barnes.
6th June 1915
Harold Leonard Darby was born in Edgbaston, Birmingham in March 1893 and died in France on 6th June 1915, aged 22, whilst serving as a Lance-Sergeant with the 1st/6th Royal Warwickshire Regiment. He is commemorated on the war memorial at St Patrick’s Church, Salter Street, but is listed as Sgt. Harold Derby [sic]. An order of service for a memorial service at the church on 3rd September 1916 records him as Sergeant Harold Leonard Darby, although this indicated he died in May 1915, not June.
4th June 1915
Lance Corporal Harry Pugh, 4th Battalion, Worcestershire Regiment, was killed in action on 4th June 1915. He was the sixth of ten children, and the second to be killed in the war. His brother, Harold, died on 12th March 1915.
Solihull Life 