sharing Solihull's local history
For many years, Charlie the Chimp could be seen somersaulting in the window of Gordon Scott’s shoe shop in Solihull High Street.
In 2014, after becoming completely exhausted, Charlie came to spend his retirement at The Core Library, Solihull. His place in the shop window was taken by his “younger brother”, Gordon.
Private Thomas Duffin, 1st/5th Battalion, Royal Warwickshire Regiment, died on 24th August 1917, aged 38. He was born in Packwood in 1879 and was the third of the eight children born to parents Thomas, an agricultural labourer, and Jane (née Kirby) who had married at Packwood in 1873 when Thomas (senior), a widower, was aged 48 and Jane was 19.
Two local officers died on 15th August 1917 – Lieutenant John Howard Banks, 176th Company, Machine Gun Corps and Lieutenant Holroyd Birkett Barker, 134th Siege Battery, Royal Garrison Artillery.
Two men with a local connection died in Flanders on 1st August 1917, the second day of the Third Battle of Ypres – former schoolteacher Second Lieutenant George Williams Hastings, 3rd Battalion Monmouthshire Regiment (attached to the 10th Battalion Cheshire Regiment), and labourer, Private David Thorneycroft, 38th Field Ambulance, Army Medical Corps.
Four local men lost their lives on 31st July 1917, the opening day of the Third Battle of Ypres (also known as Passchendaele, after the surrounding village and ridge). The offensive lasted until the village was taken on 6th November 1917, at a cost of some 310,000 British casualties, and over 260,000 German casualties.
Our local casualties on the first day, the Battle of Pilckem Ridge were:
Having no known grave, all of them are commemorated on the Ypres (Menin Gate) Memorial
19-year-old Lieutenant Joseph Cecil Smith, 70th Squadron Royal Flying Corps, was killed in action on 28th July 1917. He has no known grave and is commemorated on the Arras Flying Services Memorial.
Private Leonard Gillett was killed in action on 27th July 1917, serving as a Private with the 1st Battalion, Worcestershire Regiment, having been transferred from the Royal Warwickshire Regiment.
Regular soldier, Acting Bombardier Arthur John Berry MM, 49th Siege Battery, Royal Garrison Artillery died of wounds on 16th July 1917. Born in Shirley in 1889, he was the third of the seven children (five sons, two daughters) born to parents Samuel, a labourer, and Esther (née Gardner) who had married in 1885.
Gunner Abraham Birch Stowe, of Solihull, was killed in action on 10th June 1917 serving with the 138th Heavy Brigade, Royal Garrison Artillery. A regular soldier, he joined the Royal Garrison Artillery in October 1908 and, in 1911, was stationed at Fort Tigné, Malta.
Three local men lost their lives on 7th June 1917 during the Battle of Messines in West Flanders, Belgium: Captain Harold Jackson, Royal Flying Corps; Private William Charles Sumner, 33rd Battalion Australian Infantry; and Private Almon John Wills, 10th Battalion Royal Warwickshire Regiment.
