sharing Solihull's local history
On 30th March 1915, 19-year-old Rifleman Leslie Wilson from Catherine-de-Barnes, died of wounds in France whilst serving with the 2nd Battalion, Rifle Brigade, which had been in France since 6th November 1914, although Leslie joined them on 26th January 1915, according to his medal index card.
On the same day as Private Wilson died in France, Stoker 1st Class, David Bradbury, returning from leave, was fatally injured falling from a train as it passed through Castle Bromwich.
William Asbury was born in Birmingham in 1889 to parents, William (an iron caster) and Emma. He was baptised on 7th July 1889 at St Stephen’s Church, Birmingham. His older sister, Alethea, and younger brother, Thomas, were also baptised there in 1887 and 1894 respectively.
It looks as if their father, William (senior) died in 1894 at the age of 34 and their mother seems to have died, aged 36, at the end of 1897. However, she is still listed as next-of-kin with an address of 51 Princip Street, Birmingham when the three children were all admitted to Marston Green Cottage Homes on 5th January 1898. They seem to have remained there throughout the rest of their childhoods. The Homes had opened in January 1880 to accommodate children who would otherwise have gone into Birmingham Workhouse (now the site of Dudley Road Hospital).
Two local men lost their lives on 12th March 1915. Private Herbert Rushton of Castle Bromwich died, aged 24, whilst serving with the 3rd Battalion, Worcestershire Regiment. On the same day, Acting Corporal Harold Pugh, 2nd Battalion, Royal Scots Fusiliers was killed in action.
Corporal Ernest Bateman, 2nd Battalion, South Staffordshire Regiment, was killed in action on 10th March 1915 according to Commonwealth War Graves records. Soldiers Died in the Great War lists the date of death as 26th June 1915. Continue reading “10th March 1915”
Cavalry Officer, 26-year-old Rowland Auriol James Beech, the “apple of his parents’ eye” and a fine horseman, was killed in action on 21st February 1915 serving as a Captain with the 16th Lancers. He was the eldest son of Lieutenant-Colonel Rowland John Beech, who died of illness in 1919 after World War I service, aged 63, and is also recorded as a war casualty on the Commonwealth War Graves site.
On 18th February 1915, 44-year-old Major Arthur Joseph Clay died of pneumonia at Harpenden, whilst serving with the 2nd/6th Battalion North Staffordshire Regiment. Born on 29th April 1870 at Burton-on-Trent, he was the eldest son of Charles John Clay, barrister at law and Managing Director of Bass Brewery. Arthur’s mother, Agnes Lucy (née Arden) died in 1874, leaving four sons under the age of five. When Arthur was 13, his father married again, and went on to have two daughters with his second wife.
Arthur attended Harrow School and New College, Oxford. He was gazetted Second Lieutenant with the 2nd Volunteer Battalion Prince of Wales’s (North Staffordshire Regiment) in February 1893, and rose to the rank of Captain before resigning his commission in advance of the merger of volunteer units in 1908 to create the Territorial Force. He became a Director of Messrs. Bass, Ratcliffe and Gretton, a Director of the Gordon Hotels and was one of the principal promoters of the Motor Industry in Burton-on-Trent.
The first of the 95 casualties from the Solihull area to die in 1915 was Royal Naval Chaplain, Rev. George Brooke Robinson, who died on New Year’s Day 1915 whilst serving on H.M.S. Formidable. This was the first British battleship to be sunk in the First World War. Rev. Robinson was the most senior Royal Navy chaplain to die in the war, and the fourth of 19 navy chaplains to be die on active service 1914-1919.
Continue reading “1st January 1915”Private John Charles Smith was killed in action at Givenchy on 22nd December 1914, aged 21. He died just over four months after enlisting in the Coldstream Guards.
According to the information in De Ruvigny’s Roll of Honour, he was the third son of Joseph and Ann Smith of Park Lane Corner, Berkswell. He was born on 12th April 1893 at Temple Balsall and was educated at Burton Green, near Kenilworth, and Temple Balsall. He enlisted on 18th August 1914 and was posted to France in December, shortly before he was killed.
He is commemorated at Berkswell and he is one of more than 13,400 soldiers with no known grave who is commemorated on the Le Touret Memorial, Pas de Calais, France.
Private George Henry Carter, aged 27, died of wounds on 21st December 1914 and is buried in Belgium at the London Rifle Brigade Cemetery.
Private Arthur Stenson died of wounds at the 19th Field Ambulance, serving with the 2nd Battalion Royal Welsh Fusiliers. The Commonwealth War Graves website gives his date of death as 9th December, although Soldiers Died in the Great War and Register of Soldiers’ Effects both record him as dying on 7th December.
Born in Birmingham in 1887, Arthur was living in Marston Green Cottage Homes by the 1891 census when he was three years old. He was still there ten years later, aged 14, and working as a bricklayer’s labourer’s boy. Cottage Homes were established in the 19th century to house children who would otherwise have gone into the workhouse. The intention was to keep children away from the adult inmates who could be bad influences. Many Cottage Homes educated the children, sometimes even better than they would have been outside the Homes, and taught them a trade so that they would be able to earn a living once they left.
Solihull Life 