18th July 1916

Private Tertius Beniah Baldwin died at Edmonton Military Hospital on 18th July 1916 whilst serving with 134 Motor Transport Company, Army Service Corps. He was born in 1894 and was the eldest of the seven children (five sons, two daughters) of Thomas Walter Baldwin (a farmer) and his wife Amy Kate (née Lichfield) who had married in May 1893 at All Saints Church, Hockley, Birmingham. They set up home at Blounts Hole Farm, Trueman’s Heath, Hollywood where they lived until at least the early 1920s.

Although Thomas & Amy Baldwin were living with five of their children at Blounts Hole Farm in 1911 – Walter Richard (1896-1984), Henry Joseph (1897-1978), Shirley Franklin (1899-1917), Kathleen May Mabel (1907-1939), and James William (born 1909). Their eldest son, Tertius, was living with his widowed maternal grandmother, Sarah Ann Lichfield, at Holly Cottage, Stratford Road, Shirley. She is given as his next of kin in the Register of Soldiers’ Effects. Their youngest child, Phyllis, was born in 1913.

We don’t know when Tertius enlisted, but he first served overseas on 12th August 1915, so he must have been a volunteer rather than a conscript. His peacetime occupation seems to have been as a chemist’s assistant. His brother, Harry Joseph (born 24th December 1897) also served in the First World War, enlisting on 6th September 1915 and serving as a Driver with the Royal Field Artillery. He survived the war and was discharged in June 1919. He went on to marry Doris L. Tranter in 1930 and was living in Shawhust Lane, Hollywood in 1939, working as a nurseryman.

Tertius died in the UK and is buried in St James’s Churchyard, Shirley. If you have any further information about the family, please let us know.

Tracey
Heritage & Local Studies Librarian

tel.: 0121 704 6977
email: heritage@solihull.gov.uk