sharing Solihull's local history
Two men with a connection to the Solihull area died on 31st August 1916: Second Lieutenant John Cane Crawford, Royal Horse Artillery, was killed in action, aged 18, just two months after arriving at the Front; Captain John Wilmshurst Granger Smith, South Staffordshire Regiment was also killed in action on the same day.
The local connection is that John Cane Crawford’s family lived for a time in Hampton-in-Arden. John Smith lived in Acocks Green but was a member of Olton Cricket Club.
36-year-old Private Thomas Walter Haynes, 4th Battalion King’s (Liverpool) Regiment, and 22-year-old Corporal Horace Timmins, 15th Battalion Royal Warwickshire Regiment (1st Birmingham Pals) both died on 29th August 1916.
Both men were born in Birmingham, although Thomas Haynes was living in Knowle before joining the Army. Horace Timmins’ local connection is that he spent time living at Marston Green Cottage Homes where his mother, Emma, was a foster mother.
Berkswell-born Rifleman John Timms, 7th Battalion, King’s Royal Rifle Corps, died of wounds in hospital in France on 25th August 1916, aged 19, and is buried at Dernancourt Communal Cemetery Extension, France. He is also commemorated locally on Berkswell war memorial. An employee of the Rover works before the war, he enlisted in the Army in November 1915, five days after his 19th birthday, and embarked for France on 18th April 1916, just over four months before he was fatally wounded.
31-year-old Private Alfred Knibb was killed in action on 20th August 1916 serving with the 1st/9th Battalion Royal Warwickshire Regiment. He was born in 1885 in the parish of Tanworth-in-Arden and was the 9th child and youngest son of parents Edwin and Ellen (née Keen). The couple had married in 1867 in Knowle and went on to have 12 children, of whom 11 (five sons, six daughters) were still living by the time of the 1911 census.
19-year-old Christopher Henry Cranmer died of wounds in Salonika on 19th August 1916 whilst serving as a Corporal with the 7th Battalion Oxford & Bucks Light Infantry. On the same day, Lance Corporal Arthur Busby died of wounds in France whilst serving with the 1st/5th Battalion, Royal Warwickshire Regiment.
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.
Lieutenant Theodore Newman Hall died at Rouen on 15th August 1916 from wounds received on 23rd July whilst serving with the Oxford & Bucks Light Infantry. He was an only child and was born on 12th November 1894 in Sligo, Ireland.
His father, Rev. William Aidan Newman Hall, known as Aidan, was a minister with the Congregational Church, who moved to Sligo in July 1892, having previously attended Mount Pleasant Church, Hastings and been a student at Cheshunt Hall, Hertfordshire. He married his wife, Alice, in the same year.
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.
Rifleman Frederick John Doughty was killed in action on 6th August 1916, serving with the 13th Battalion, King’s Royal Rifle Corps. He was born in Bishop’s Tachbrook, Warwickshire in 1889 and was the eldest of the two children on parents, Frederick (a gardener at the time of his son’s baptism) and Emma (née Eels) who had married in Coventry in 1888. His younger sister, Elsie, was born on 28th December 1894.
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.
Solihull Life 