Sergeant Edward Arthur Irons, 9th Battalion, Royal Warwickshire Regiment (attached to the Supply and Transport Corps) died in India on 6th June 1919. He was the third of three brothers from Castle Bromwich to die as a result of service in the First World War.
Edward was born in Castle Bromwich in 1889 and baptised at the parish church on 1st December 1889 as Arthur Edward. He was presumably known as Edward, and his first names subsequently became transposed. His parents, Charles (a labourer) and Lizzie (née White) had married in 1876 in Aston, and they went on to have 16 children, including two sets of twins. Edward was the couple’s seventh child and their fourth son. Three of the children – Helen (born and died 1893) and twins Frank and Frederick (born and died 1894) – are known to have died as infants.
By the time of the 1911 census, 21-year-old Edward was working as a blacksmith and living with his widowed father and four of his younger siblings at The Green, Castle Bromwich. His mother, Lizzie, had died in 1909 so was spared the knowledge of the deaths of three of her sons in the war – youngest son, Alfred Richard, died in 1915 and older brother, George William, died in 1917.
Edward Arthur Irons is buried at Madras Cemetery, Chennai and is commemorated locally on Castle Bromwich war memorial and on the Roll of Honour in St Mary & St Margaret’s Church, Castle Bromwich.
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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