Temporary Flight Sub-Lieutenant Lewis Radmore died of septic pneumonia whilst serving as a transport officer at the Headquarters of the Royal Naval Air Service (RNAS), which was previously the Naval Wing of the Royal Flying Corps. His death took place at Putney and he is buried in Hampton-in-Arden.
Lewis Radmore was born in 1882 in Eggbuckland, Devon, to parents Lewis (a farmer, born in Batheaston, Somerset) and Mary (née Durley, born in Dublin, Ireland), who had married in Wandsworth in 1876. Lewis was the couple’s second child to be born alive – his sister Agnese [sic] Ellen was born in Thorverton, Devon, in 1878. The couple also had a stillborn son born on 3rd June 1877 at Pynes House, Thorverton.
By 1881, the family had moved to Woollaford, Buckfastleigh, but the estate – described as comprising “about 105 acres of healthy sheep and corn land” was advertised to let in December 1881. It was then advertised for sale by auction in February the following year, owing to Mr Lewis Radmore’s decision to leave the neighbourhood. The 1891 census shows the family living in Cardiff. They had moved to Edgabston by 1901, where 18-year-old Lewis (junior) was working as a merchant’s clerk. Lewis (senior) died in Edgbaston in 1909, aged 82. His daughter Agnese married William Percival Miller in 1910 and the couple made their home in Edgbaston with Agnese’s widowed mother.
We haven’t been able to find Lewis (junior) on the 1911 census, but he married Gwendolen Agnes Charrington in London in June 1916, just three months before his death. Although the marriage took place in London, it appears that Lewis’s home address was The Croft, Old Station Road, Hampton-in-Arden. His widow remarried in 1921, moved to Hampshire, and seems to have died in 1981, aged 88. Lewis’s sister and brother-in-law were still living at The Croft in 1939.
Lewis Radmore is buried in Hampton-in-Arden churchyard (though not with a military pattern headstone). He is commemorated on the war memorial at Hampton, but also on the rolls of honour of Copt Heath Golf Club and Olton Golf Club.
If you have any further information, please let us know.
Tracey
Heritage & Local Studies Librarian
tel.: 0121 704 6977
email: heritage@solihull.gov.uk
Solihull Life 
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