At “zero hour” – 7.30am on Saturday 1st July 1916 – officers in the trenches blew whistles and British troops scrambled up ladders along a 14-mile stretch of the Western Front. As instructed, they advanced at a slow, steady pace across No Man’s Land. They were met with a hail of German machine-gun and rifle fire. Accurate German shell barrages of the Allied assembly trenches also cut off their lines of support.
1st July 1916 – Solihull and Shirley
Seven men with a connection to Solihull or Shirley are known to have died on 1st July 1916:
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- Private James Burton, Middlesex Regiment
- Private Harold Clifton, Royal Warwickshire Regiment
- Private Frederick Percy Cooper, Royal Warwickshire Regiment
- Second Lieutentant William Henry Furse, Northumberland Fusiliers
- Private John Palmer Lyndon, Royal Warwickshire Regiment
- Private Richard James Smith, Royal Warwickshire Regiment
- Private James Webster, Royal Warwickshire Regiment
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1st July 1916 – Olton
Five men with a connection to Olton are known to have lost their lives on 1st July 1916:
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- Lance Corporal John Herbert Hockley, Royal Newfoundland Regiment
- Second Lieutenant Horace Birchall Jones, North Staffordshire Regiment
- Lieutenant Donald George Harding Truman, Royal Warwickshire Regiment
- Private Leslie Waters, Royal Warwickshire Regiment
- Private Albert Weale, Royal Warwickshire Regiment
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1st July 1916 – Knowle etc
Nine local men with a connection to the area around Balsall Common, Knowle and, Dorridge died on the first day of the Battle of the Somme, 1st July 1916:
- Second Lieutenant John Balkwill, Royal Warwickshire Regiment
- Second Lieutenant Geoffrey Jermyn Brand, General List (attached 101st Trench Mortar Battery)
- Private Thomas Cooper, Royal Warwickshire Regiment
- Private Walter Jennings, Royal Warwickshire Regiment
- Lieutenant Colonel Maurice Nicholl Kennard MC, West Yorkshire Regiment (Prince of Wales’s Own)
- Captain Stratford Walter Ludlow, Royal Warwickshire Regiment
- Private Alfred Mutlow, North Staffordshire Regiment
- Private George Arthur Smitten, Royal Warwickshire Regiment
- Captain Willingham Franklin Gell Wiseman, Lincolnshire Regiment
Three of the men – John Balkwill, Thomas Cooper, and Stratford Ludlow, are commemorated in a stained glass window in the Soldiers’ Chapel at Knowle Parish Church, which was given in memory of Stratford Ludlow by his father, Brigadier-General Ludlow. It was dedicated by the Bishop of Birmingham on 5th June 1921.
1st July 1916 – Castle Bromwich and Marston Green
Two men from Castle Bromwich and one from Marston Green died on the first day of the First Battle of the Somme
- Private John Thomas Churchill, Royal Warwickshire Regiment
- Lieutenant Robert Quilter Gilson, Suffolk Regiment
- Private Harry Rudd, Royal Warwickshire Regiment
Continue reading “1st July 1916 – Castle Bromwich and Marston Green”
Solihull Life 