Private Hugh Hargrave Wyatt-Smith died of peritonitis in the Military Hospital, Endell Street, London as a result of appendicitis. He had served in the military for only 37 days and was just a few days past his 18th birthday.
31st January 1916
Private Joseph Harrison, who died on 31st January 1916 serving as a Private with the 1st Battalion, King’s Shropshire Light Infantry, was born in Baddesley Clinton, Warwickshire in 1887. Apart from his war service, he seems to have lived in Baddesley Clinton for his whole life, as did many of his family, who seem to have had a long association with Baddesley Clinton Hall as servants.
On the 1891 census, all four of the live-in female servants (housekeeper, cook, housemaid and kitchen maid) were members of the Harrison family – the sister of Joseph’s father, and three of her nieces.
25th January 1916
On 25th January 1916, two local men died as a result of their war service:
- Temporary Captain, John Harry Hartill, aged 52, General List
- Private William Lovegrove, aged 23, 1st Battalion, Royal Warwickshire Regiment
21st January 1916
Lieutenant Robert Laurence Needham, known as Laurie, was killed in action in Mesopotamia (modern-day Iraq) on 21st January 1916 during the Siege of Kut el Amara (the First Battle of Kut), 100 miles south of Baghdad.
Born in Brighton on 10th April 1889, Laurie and his younger brother, Frederic Gilbert (known as Gilbert), both attended Solihull School after boarding at a private school in Brighton.
17th January 1916
Second Lieutenant Charles Hugh Davies died in France on 17th January 1916 after a piece of shrapnel pierced the roof of his dug-out and struck him on the head as he was sleeping. He was 28 years old and was serving with the 9th Battalion Welsh Regiment. Although born in Stoke Bishop, Bristol in June 1887, his father, Thomas Davidson Davies, was from Camarthenshire, Wales.
Charles was the eldest of the three sons of Thomas Davidson Davies (Chief Mathematical Master at Clifton College) and his wife, Elinor Lucy (née Thomas). His local connection to the Solihull area is that he was a boarder at Packwood Haugh School from 1899 until 1901 when he went on to Rugby School, winning a General Exhibition before he left in 1905. He went up to Magdalen College, Oxford with a Classical Demyship (scholarship).
29th December 1915
The last of the known casualties from places now within the Solihull Borough to die in 1915 died on 29th December 1915.
Eric Arthur Walker, who enlisted as a Private with the Warwickshire Yeomanry before being commissioned on 26th February 1915 as Second Lieutenant 9th Battalion (attached 6th Battalion) King’s Shropshire Light Infantry. He first entered a Theatre of War on 16th October 1915, just over two months before he died on 29th December, aged 20.
Corporal Archibald Haye Neill, 1st Garrison Battalion, Royal Warwickshire Regiment, died in Sudan and is buried in Khartoum Military Cemetery. His name was added to the Hampton-in-Arden War Memorial in 2015, 100 years after his death.
24th December 1915
Captain George Pottinger Cox was killed in action on Christmas Eve 1915, aged 22, serving with the 1st Battalion, Essex Regiment. His surname, Cox, was actually the name of his step-father, by which he seems to have been known after the remarriage of his widowed mother when he was aged one. His birth surname was Innocent.
He was born on 15th January 1893 in Tientsin [Tianjin], China where his father and grandfather had both been Methodist missionaries. His parents, Rev. George Morrison Hallam Innocent and Florence Elizabeth Pottinger had married in England in February 1892 whilst Rev. Innocent was on furlough from his missionary post, having attended the Methodist Conference 1891 in Leeds. In April 1892, the newlyweds set sail from London aboard the S.S. Glengyle. However, midway on the journey, Rev. Innocent was taken ill with haemorrhagic purpura and died on 30th May 1892, about 138 miles from Hong Kong. The ship put into port there next day and Rev. Innocent was buried in Happy Valley Cemetery, aged 32.
15th December 1915
Two local non-commissoned officers (NCOs) were killed in action on 15th December 1915:
- Corporal Percy Taylor Broomfield of Marston Green, serving with 15th Battalion (2nd Birmingham), Royal Warwickshire Regiment
- Corporal Charles Henry Stone of Castle Bromwich
Neither man was born in these parishes – both had moved from their birthplace and settled in the area.
9th December 1915
Thomas Freeman of Hockley Heath died of wounds on 9th December 1915 whilst serving as a Private with the Oxford and Buckinghamshire Light Infantry. He is buried in France at Sailly-sur-la-Lys Canadian Cemetery and also commemorated locally on Hockley Heath village war memorial, and on memorials at St Thomas’s Church, Hockley Heath, and Umberslade Baptist Church.
Continue reading “9th December 1915”7th December 1915
William Hands Perkins was born in 1892 in Weston-sub-Edge, Gloucestershire, and was baptised there on 27th November 1892, the sixth child of George Frederick Perkins (a labourer) and his wife, Rose (née Court). William was killed in action at the age of 23 on 7th December 1915 serving as a Private in the 6th Battalion Oxford and Buckinghamshire Light Infantry.
At first sight, it’s not clear why he’s commemorated locally at Hockley Heath and Umberslade. Soldiers Died in the Great War gives his birthplace and residence as Weston-sub-Edge, although he enlisted in Birmingham. His parents appear to have remained in Weston all their lives, as did his youngest brother, Allen Nelson Perkins, whose burial, aged 71, is recorded in the parish registers there in 1971. William himself is recorded on the 1901 census in Weston but isn’t there with his parents in 1911 and we haven’t been able to track him down elsewhere.
However, researching William’s siblings sheds some light on the local connection. Although in Gloucestershire, Weston-sub-Edge is only about 26 miles from Hockley Heath and, as is often the case with migration, it looks as if one family member moved first, to be then followed by others.
