Two men with a local connection lost their lives on 5th January 1918. 29-year-old Private John Henry Bridges died of wounds at no. 19 Casualty Clearing Station whilst serving with the 3rd/10th Battalion Middlesex Regiment. 26-year-old Gunner Alexander John Prince was killed in action whilst serving with the 1st/2nd (Lancs) Battery, Royal Garrison Artillery.
Continue reading “5th January 1918”4th January 1918
34-year-old Lance Corporal George Johnson, 11th Battalion, Royal Warwickshire Regiment, died of wounds in France on 4th January 1918. He was born in Marton, Warwickshire on 29th September 1883 and was the seventh of the twelve children of parents, William (a farm labourer) and Emma (née Hobday) who had married at Stretton on Dunsmore on Christmas Day, 1870.
23rd December 1917
Two local men lost their lives on active service on 23rd December 1917 – Sergeant Walter Henry Mitchell, 111th Company, Machine Gun Corps, and Able Seaman John Henry Williams, Royal Naval Reserve, serving on HMS Surprise.
21st December 1917
Private Edward Richards died of wounds on 21st December 1917. Aged 42, he had been called up in June 1916 and, although expressing a preference to serve in the Artillery, he was posted to the Royal Irish Fusiliers. He was then transferred to the 87th Company, Labour Corps. 18-year-old John Shirley, lately a Private with the 7th Reserve Battalion, Royal Warwickshire Regiment, died of rheumatic fever on the same day.
12th December 1917
Lieutenant Lancelot John Barrington Walters lost his life in the sinking of HMS Partridge in the North Sea. On the same day, Private Alfred Humphriss Saunt, Army Service Corps, died of wounds at Queen Mary’s Military Hospital, Whalley, Lancashire.
10th December 1917
Private Alfred Williams, 241132, 2nd/6th South Staffordshire Regiment, died of wounds on 10th December 1917. According to Soldiers Died in the Great War, he was born in Knowle, Warwickshire and enlisted in Wolverhampton.
5th December 1917
Second Lieutenant Vernon Radcliffe Stewart, aged 23, was accidentally killed on 5th December 1917 whilst serving as a flying instructor at Castle Bromwich. He was born on 19th March 1894 in Holmesfield, Derbyshire but, by 1901, the family had moved to Haslingden, 19 miles north of Manchester. He was educated at Newchurch Grammar School, Haslingden Secondary School, Gigglewick School, and Manchester University before going on to study medicine at St Mary’s Hospital, London.
1st December 1917
“Old Contemptible,” Sergeant David Jesse Watts MM, 1st Battalion Worcestershire Regiment, died of wounds at the Royal Victoria Hospital, Netley, near Southampton on 1st December 1917, aged 29.
Continue reading “1st December 1917”30th November 1917
Three local men lost their lives on 28th November 1917 whilst on active service:
- Lance Corporal Bernard Greenland, 2nd Battalion, Hampshire Regiment
- Private Josiah Hill, 7th Battalion, Duke of Cornwall’s Light Infantry
- Private Frederick James Palmer, 5th Battalion, Royal Berkshire Regiment
All three have no known grave and are commemorated on the Cambrai Memorial.
Tudor Grange Special School
Throughout December 2017, there was an exhibition in the Heritage Gallery on the first floor of The Core, Theatre Square, Solihull relating to Tudor Grange Special School, which provided residential and day accommodation for children with physically disabling conditions such as polio and cerebral palsy.
Solihull Life 