Two men with a local connection lost their lives on 16th July 1918 whilst on active service – Private Percy Farmer Draycott, Royal Army Service Corps and Private Charles Henry Hiles, 18th Battalion, Lancashire Fusiliers.
2nd July 1938 – opening of Brueton Gardens
The official opening of Brueton Gardens on the corner of Warwick Road and Lode Lane, Solihull took place at 11am on 2nd July 1938.
The land, opposite Poplar Road, had previously been occupied by a house called The Poplars, which had been home to Doris Hamilton-Smith, an artist and pupil of Edith Holden (the “Edwardian Lady” whose nature diary was posthumously published in 1977).
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28 June 1968 – Solihull’s first Conservation Areas
The first two Conservation Areas in Solihull – the centres of Solihull and Knowle – were declared as such on 28th June 1968, with a declaration appearing in the London Gazette, 2nd July 1968.
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28th June 1918
Three men with a local connection lost their lives on active service on 28th June 1918:
- Private Harry Cross, 1st Battalion, Duke of Cornwall’s Light Infantry
- Private Robert Henry Smith, 15th Battalion, Royal Warwickshire Regiment
- Private George Henry Taylor, 12th Battalion, Hampshire Regiment
20th May 1918
25-year-old Corporal William Reginald Finley, 1st Life Guards, died of wounds on 20th May 1918 after being injured by an aerial bomb some days before. Born in Bentley Heath, Solihull in 1892, he was the only son of parents William Robert and Elizabeth (née Ravenhill) who had married in Aston in 1889. The couple also had four daughters.
5th May 1918
21-year-old Captain Clement Martineau, 10th Battalion Royal Warwickshire Regiment, died of wounds on 5th May 1918 after being badly wounded and taken prisoner on 10th April 1918.
Continue reading “5th May 1918”28th April 1918
Rifleman Thomas Clifford Williams died of wounds on 28th April 1918 whilst serving with the London Regiment (Queen Victoria’s Rifles). He was 27 years old and was born in Solihull in 1890.
25th April 1918
23-year-old Second Lieutenant Arthur George Ansell, 1st Field Survey Company, Royal Engineers, died of gas poisoning in No. 8 Red Cross Hospital, Boulogne, France on 25th April 1918, after being gassed at Passchendaele. He was the eldest of the three children of parents Arthur John (an agent for the Prudential Assurance Company at Solihull) and Emma (née Lynes) who had married in Notting Hill in 1893. Arthur John Ansell was a widower – his first wife, Kate Purvey (1867-1892) had died in childbirth in 1892, after just one year of marriage.
24th April 1918
Two local men lost their lives on 24th April 1918 whilst on active service – Corporal William Henry Harrison, 1st Battalion Cheshire Regiment, and Private Arthur Ronald Prentice, 14th Battalion, Gloucestershire Regiment.
18th April 1918
Private George Edward Houlston died of wounds on 18th April 1918 whilst serving in France with the 4th Battalion Machine Gun Corps. He was 20 years old and was born in Solihull in 1897.
Solihull Life 