Second Lieutenant Kenneth Selby Waters was killed on 30th May 1917, whilst serving with the Indian Army Reserve of Officers, attached to No. 1 Mountain Battery, Royal Garrison Artillery. He was born in Nuneaton on 18th June 1890, where his father, Rev. Samuel George Waters, was headmaster of King Edward VI School from 1880 until 1908. Kenneth was the eldest of the two children of Rev. Waters’ second marriage to Ellen Selby.
His sister Winifred Mary was born in 1897. They also had five half-siblings from their father’s first marriage to Laura Ann Batchelor (1849-1884) – Harold William (born 1875), George Cecil (born 1877), Eveline Laura (born 1880), Sybil Bertha (born 1881), and Aubrey Eustace (1883-1945).
Kenneth was educated at King Edward’s School Nuneaton, King’s School Warwick, King’s School Grantham and St John’s College Cambridge where he took his BA in 1912 and was a member of the Officer Training Corps (OTC) and a keen oarsman, rowing at Henley Regatta.
In 1912, he went to India and worked for the Calcutta branch of shipping firm Messrs Turner, Morrison & Co. When war broke out in 1914, he wanted to join the Army but couldn’t immediately be spared from his work so joined the Calcutta Port Defence Corps in October 1914. He subsequently obtained a commission and was gazetted Second Lieutenant with the Indian Army Reserve of Officers in May 1917.
He was killed at Bara Gali, Murree Hills on May 30th 1917 being shot by a transborder raider whilst at mess. He is commemorated on the Karachi War Memorial.
The local connection is that his father, Rev. Samuel George Waters, was Vicar of Meriden 1916-1921, and Kenneth’s name is included on Meriden War Memorial. Rev. Waters died in 1929 as a result of shock after being hit by a motor car whilst crossing the road in Milverton. The Leamington Spa Courier of 3rd January 1930 describes the funeral and notes that a wreath was sent by “the old parishioners of St Lawrence, Meriden.”
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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