Gunner Alfred Bartlett, aged 40, died on 16th March 1918 whilst serving at Boyton Camp, Wiltshire with the 4th “B” Reserve Brigade, Royal Field Artillery. He was born in 1877 in Stow-on-the-Wold and was the third of the ten children of parents George and Elizabeth (née Webb) who had married in Elizabeth’s home parish of Great Rollright, Oxfordshire in 1871.
By 1881, the family was living in Maugersbury, Stow on the Wold, but had moved to Upper Oddington by 1891. The family seems to have remained in Oddington until at least the 1920s, although Alfred appears to have moved to the Solihull area by 1906, when he married Charlotte Lavinia Wilkes of Knowle.
Alfred was a plate-layer with the Great Western Railway, as was Charlotte’s step-father, Thomas Henry Young, so this may be how Alfred and Charlotte met. By 1911, Alfred and Charlotte were living in Bentley Heath with their two sons, Alfred (1907-1979) and Robert (1910-1991). Although Bentley Heath was in the parish of Solihull, both of the boys were baptised at Knowle parish church on 12th February 1911.
Alfred enlisted in Birmingham, and first entered a Theatre of War on 19th August 1914, less than a fortnight after war was declared.
He is buried at St Nicholas’ Church in his parents’ home parish of Oddington, where it seems his widow was also living in the early 1920s. He is also commemorated locally in the Soldiers’ Chapel at Knowle. His widow, Charlotte, subsequently returned to the Solihull area, and in 1939 was living with her eldest son a few doors away from her mother and stepfather in Poplar Road, Dorridge. Charlotte Bartlett died in 1962, aged 80.
If you have any further information on the family, please let us know.
Tracey
Heritage & Local Studies Librarian
tel.: 0121 704 6977
email: heritage@solihull.gov.uk
Solihull Life 
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