Category: First World War

24th September 1915

Company Sergeant Major Harry Edwards, from Tanworth-in-Arden, was killed in action on 24th September 1915 having served with the Army for 18 years, 291 days. He was a regular soldier who enlisted with the Worcestershire Regiment in December 1896 at the age of 18 years two months, giving his previous occupation as an engine driver. He extended his service in 1904, and was re-engaged in 1908.

He served in South Africa during the Boer War, subsequently being promoted to Corporal in March 1906 and to Lance Sergeant in September 1911. He was mobilised to Egypt on 5th August 1914. After a brief spell of home leave in October/November 1914, he was sent to France on 5th November 1914 and served on the front line until his death. He was awarded the Distinguished Conduct Medal (DCM) in February 1915 for gallantry in the field on the 9th January 1915 at Neuve Chappelle, in an attack on a German trench during which 30 occupants were killed or wounded. In March 1915, he was promoted to Colour Sergeant and appointed Company Sergeant Major.

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14th September 1915

21-year-old George Alfred Griffin died of wounds on 14th September 1915 at the 2nd London Casualty Clearing Station, Merville, France. He was serving as a Rifleman with 12th Battalion, King’s Royal Rifle Corps and is commemorated locally on war memorials at Hockley Heath and Lapworth.

His parents, George Alfred (a bricklayer’s labourer) and Amy (née Wagstaff), were married in Allesley in 1892 at the ages of 20 and 18 respectively. Their eldest child, Emily, was baptised in Allesley in 1892 but by 1894, when George Alfred (junior) was born, the family had moved to Lapworth and seem to have remained in Wharf Lane, Lapworth until at least 1911. By the time of the 1911 census, George and Amy were recorded as having had eight children in their 18-year-marriage, of whom three had already died and five were still alive.

16-year-old George Alfred and his 18-year-old sister, Emily, were not living with their parents in 1911 – both were living at the Royal Oak pub in High Street, Solihull, where George was working as a “billiard marker etc.” and Emily was a housemaid. The landlord of the pub was Colin Walton.

Two years later, George Alfred married Mary Durkin, and she is listed as his sole legatee in the Register of Soldiers’ Effects, available on the Ancestry website (free of charge from library computers). Mary remarried after George’s death, marrying James E Baker in 1917. By the early 1920s, she was living in Poppy Cottages, Stratford Road, Shirley.

If you have any further information on the Griffin family, please let us know.

Tracey
Heritage & Local Studies Librarian

tel.: 0121 704 6977
email: heritage@solihull.gov.uk

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1st September 1915

Corporal William Enos Smith from Solihull was killed in action on 1st September 1915, aged 29, serving with the 10th Battalion, Royal Warwickshire Regiment.

An insurance agent by profession, he appears to have had quite a difficult start in life. His father Robert Enos Smith, a brickmaker, died, aged 40, when William was just two years old. William’s mother, Emma, was left a widow with six children aged between one and 11. William was the fifth child and second son. Following her husband’s death, Emma seems to have taken in boarders at the family home in New Road in order to make ends meet. She died in 1903, aged 56, when William was 16 years old.

By 1911, William was living on his own, aged 24, in Warwick Road, Solihull. His Army service record seems not to have survived but it’s known that William first entered a Theatre of War on 18th July 1915, less than two months before he was killed. He has no known grave and is commemorated on the Loos Memorial. His name is also recorded locally on the Solihull war memorial in the Square, Solihull.

An announcement of his death appeared in the Birmingham Daily Mail on 8th September 1915:

SMITH. – On the 1st inst., killed in action, Corporal William Enos Smith, 10th Royal Warwks, second son of the late Robert Enos Smith of the firm of Enos Smith and Sons, Brick Works, Solihull.
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

 

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29th August 1915

We’re not quite sure of the connection with Hockley Heath of Private Thomas Cecil Davies (also listed in some records as Davis) who died on 29th August 1915 serving as a Private with the Royal Warwickshire Regiment. He was born in Yardley in 1889 and lived there until at least 1901. His mother, Annie, died between 1901 and 1911. By 1911, his widowed father, Thomas, had moved to the Lodge, Chelmsley House, Marston Green, but Thomas Cecil was not listed with him.

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28th August 1915

An Order of Service for St. Patrick’s Church, Salter Street in 1916 includes amongst the list of local men who died, Lance Corporal Edward Thomas Blackham, Worcestershire Yeomanry. The document notes that he was born on 18th August 1890 and died on 28th August 1915.

Edward’s connection with Salter Street isn’t known – he was born in Balsall Heath, Birmingham, and lived with his parents and two sisters in Sparkhill on the 1901 and 1911 censuses. Probate records from 1915 also give his home as being in Sparkhill.

It’s known that he attended King Edward VI Camp Hill School for Boys, Birmingham and continued to play cricket for the Camp Hill Old Edwardians. He embarked at Avonmouth with the Warwickshire Yeomanry on 9th April 1915, arriving in Alexandria for service with the Mediterranean Expeditionary Force on 24th April 1915. He was killed in action four months later and is buried at Green Hill Cemetery, Turkey.

Although mentioned in the Order of Service, Edward’s name isn’t included on the Salter Street war memorial so exactly what his connection with the parish was isn’t known. If you have any further information, please let us know.

Tracey
Heritage & Local Studies Librarian

Tel.: 0121 704 6934
email: heritage@solihull.gov.uk

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25th August 1915

Private Sidney Butler, 8th Battalion, Royal Welsh Fusiliers, who died at sea on 25th August 1915 is commemorated on the war memorial at St Patrick’s Church, Salter Street.

He was born in 1893 in Kenilworth, Warwickshire to parents Thomas and Hannah (also recorded in records as Annie), who married in 1885. Sidney seems to have been the eldest of eight children who survived infancy out of the 12 children born to the couple.

Parents, Thomas and Hannah, were recorded in Kenilworth on the 1911 census with seven of their eight children: Theresa (16); Jesse (14); Winnie (12); Bertie (13); Nellie (9); Edward (7); and Ethel (3). 19-year-old Sidney was living in Anglesey, and working as a 2nd footman.

Sidney is listed on the Kenilworth War Memorial, but we don’t know his connection with Salter Street. Presumably, he must have moved to the parish between 1911 and when he enlisted in the Army. If you have any further information, please let us know.

Tracey
Heritage & Local Studies Librarian
tel.: 0121 704 6977
email: heritage@solihull.gov.uk

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23rd August 1915

Corporal Norman Samuel Hurrell, serving with “C” Company, Warwickshire Yeomanry, died of wounds at sea on 23rd August 1915. The Warwickshire Yeomanry had landed at Suvla Bay, Gallipoli, on 18th August 1915 and took part in the attack on Chocolate Hill, and Hill 112, on 21st August, so it seems likely that Corporal Hurrell was injured in this attack and was on board a hospital ship when he died of wounds he had received.

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21st August 1915

Leonard Adams was born in Knowle on 18th April 1897 to parents Thomas and Ada, and was baptised at Knowle parish church on 27th May 1897. He was the third of five children born to the couple and the last of their three boys to be born in Knowle. Leonard’s two younger sisters were born in Dudley and Stourbridge, and the family then moved to Droitwich and Worcester.

Leonard died in Gallipoli on 21st August 1915, aged 19, serving as a Private with the 2nd Battalion Welsh Borderers, having previously served with the Royal Army Medical Corps. He has no known grave and is commemorated on the Helles Memorial. He is not commemorated locally, as far as we know, and doesn’t seem to be included on the war memorials of any of the other places with which his family was associated.

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16th August 1915

Three days after the death of Private Joseph Williams aboard the hospital ship, Valdivia, another local man also died of wounds on board the same ship.

Lance Corporal Charles Thomas Hutchings, only surviving child of parents Thomas (a tailor) and Matilda Hutchings of Bentley Heath, Dorridge and Knowle, died on 16th August 1915, serving with the 9th Battalion Worcestershire Regiment. He is recorded as a Lance Corporal in Soldiers Died in the Great War but as a Private on the Commonwealth War Graves website.

Charles was born in 1895 in Birmingham but by 1901 he and his parents were living at Bentley Heath with his grandfather, Richard Hutchings, who was a widower, aged 54. By 1911, Charles and his parents had moved to Tile House Green, Knowle. Charles was the couple’s only surviving child, but the census notes that he had had a sibling who had died.

Charles was educated at Solihull School and was a member of the Officers’ Training Corps there. He joined the Army on 17th August 1914, and first entered a Theatre of War (Balkans) on 4th July 1915. He is commemorated at Dorridge, Knowle and Hockley Heath war memorials, and at Dorridge Cricket Club, although he is not included on the war memorial at Solihull School.

If you have any further information about Charles Thomas Hutchings, please let us know.

Tracey
Heritage & Local Studies Librarian

Tel.: 0121 704 6977
email: heritage@solihull.gov.uk

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