On 9th September 1916, Lieutenant Philip Leo Beard, aged 33, died of wounds whilst serving with the 15th Battalion, Royal Warwickshire Regiment. On the same day, Private Louis Callow was killed in action serving with the 11th Battalion Hampshire Regiment. Philip Beard, known by his middle name of Leo, was a Birmingham-based barrister but was a member of Copt Heath Golf Club. Louis Callow was born in Meriden.
18th August 1916
Three local men died on 18th August 1916: Private James Samuel Hopkins (Worcester Regiment, attached to the Royal Warwickshire Regiment); Private Herbert John Massey (6th Battalion, Royal Warwickshire Regiment); and Private William Henry Bolton (6th Battalion, Duke of Edinburgh’s (Wiltshire) Regiment). All three were gardeners by trade, although James Samuel Hopkins had previously been a soldier in the militia and served in the Boer War.
9th August 1916
Private Arthur Barnwell died on 9th August 1916 whilst serving with the 2nd Battalion South Staffordshire Regiment. He was born at Meriden Union Workhouse in 1895 and baptised at Meriden parish church. His parents, William Barnwell and Kathleen Capewell, had married at Berkswell on 5th November 1889. William was a labourer and Kathleen a servant.
30th July 1916
Four local men serving with the Royal Warwickshire Regiment are known to have died on 30th July 1916 whilst on active service; Olton resident, Private William Dobson, 14th Battalion; Private Howard John Hutchinson, formerly of Shirley, (14th Battalion); Private William John Lawley of Shirley (10th Battalion) and Solihull resident, Lance Corporal John Manning (14th Battalion). Also killed was Meriden’s Lieutenant Reginald Ernest Melly, The King’s (Liverpool Regiment). Four of them have no known grave and are commemorated on the Thiepval Memorial. Private Hutchinson was also recorded on the Thiepval Memorial but is now buried at the London Cemetery and Extension, Longueval.
9th April 1916
Lieutenant-Colonel Richard Courtenay Brabazon Throckmorton, known as Courtenay, was killed at the Battle of Sannaiyat, Mesopotamia (now Iraq) on 9th April 1916. He was aged 49 and was the eldest son of Captain Richard Acton Throckmorton, whose brother was Sir William Throckmorton of Coughton Court, Warwickshire, 9th Baronet. Courtenay was the heir presumptive to his uncle’s estates.
The local link is that he was a member of the North Warwickshire Hunt, which was based in Meriden.
28th November 1915
19-year-old Lance Corporal Stanley Waterton Cook (also recorded as Cooke in some records) died of exposure on 28th November 1915 whilst serving in the Mediterranean Expeditionary Force with the 9th Battalion Royal Warwickshire Regiment.
13th May 1915
Trooper Percy Edgar Bowen is commemorated on the war memorial at Meriden, which was where he was working when he was called up for active service in 1914.
He was born in Hinckley in 1891, and apparently lived in Hinckley until at least 1911. He was a member of the Leicestershire Yeomanry and was called up for active service when war broke out. It’s known that he first entered a Theatre of War on 2nd November 1914. He died of wounds in Belgium on 13th May 1915 during the Battle of Frezenburg Ridge, the third of six engagements that made up the Second Battle of Ypres. Research by Hinckley Museum indicates that he was initially posted as missing before being declared presumed dead in May 1916.
8th May 1915
8th May 1915 saw the deaths of two men with a connection to places now in the Solihull Borough:
- Private Harry Betts, 8th Battalion, Australian Infantry (previously of Castle Bromwich)
- Major John Cecil Lancaster, 1st Battalion, Royal Warwickshire Regiment (member of the North Warwickshire Hunt)
V. E. Day in Solihull, 1945
Tuesday 8th May 1945, Victory in Europe Day, saw much rejoicing as the fighting in Europe officially came to an end and some of the men held as prisoners of war started to return home. At 3pm on Monday 7th May Prime Minister Winston Churchill made the official announcement that the following two days would be public holidays. However, it’s clear from newspaper articles in the Warwick County News that people were very mindful that war with Japan was still ongoing. The newspaper summed up the local celebrations as:
Continue reading “V. E. Day in Solihull, 1945”“typical of others throughout the land where people had gathered together to give thanks that the nightmare of the last grey years was over, and, while remembering that men in far distant lands were still in danger of their lives, to enjoy the day that their individual effort had made particularly their own” (Warwick County News, 12th May 1945)
26th April 1915
Described as “a Dorsetshire Man” in the announcement of his death in the Leamington Spa Courier of 7th May 1915, Edward Nugent Bankes was actually born on 3rd October 1875 in Wraysbury, Buckinghamshire, and his father, grandfather and great-grandfather were all born in London.
Solihull Life 