sharing Solihull's local history
On 10th June 1949, Field Marshal Bernard Law Montgomery (1887-1976), 1st Viscount Montgomery of Alamein, visited Solihull School, inspecting 250 cadets from the school’s Combined Cadet Force (CCF) and having lunch with the Headmaster and 15 senior cadets. “Monty’s” attendance at the school’s annual parade fulfilled a promise made to the school’s Headmaster, Mr Harry Butler Hitchens (1910-1963), ten months’ previously.
Former Able Seaman Higher Grade Arthur Whitworth, Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve, died in Queen’s Hospital, Birmingham as a result of infective endocarditis (an infection of the inner lining of the heart). He had be demobilised on 5th January 1919 and is not listed on the Commonwealth War Graves website, although his gravestone notes that he “died from illness contracted in service.”
Captain Edward Rainsford Harrison, 524th Company, 61st Divisional Train, Army Service Corps, died in hospital in Abbeville, France on Christmas Day, 1918. The cause of death was double pneumonia following influenza contracted whilst on active service.
Having spent almost all of the war as a Prisoner of War, Private Cornelius Cull, 2nd Battalion, Royal Warwickshire Regiment, died of pneumonia in Germany on 24th November 1918.
Private Thomas Haydon, 23rd Battalion, Duke of Cambridge’s Own (Middlesex) Regiment, died of wounds in Woking Hospital on 21st November 1918, aged 19. He was born in the Kings Norton district c.1899 and was the younger of the two sons of parents Alfred Charles (a labourer) and Jane (née Reason) who had married in 1890.
Three men with a local connection died on 8th November 1918 – Gunner John Edward Herbert Harrison, 536th Siege Battery, Royal Garrison Artillery; Private Stephen Hastings, 2nd/4th Field Bakery, Royal Army Service Corps; and Sergeant Howard William Smith, 2nd Battalion (Knowle and Dorridge detachment), Royal Warwickshire Volunteers.
Three men with a local connection died on 7th November 1918 whilst on active service – Private Edward Allen, Reinforcement Depot, Tank Corps; Private George Terheege, Labour Corps; and Second Lieutenant John Shilvock Wright, 219th Siege Battery, Royal Garrison Artillery.
Captain Wilfred Eric Wright, 5th Battalion, South Staffordshire Regiment, died in hospital in Scarborough as a result of contracting pneumonia following influenza. He was born in Solihull in 1894 and the family was living in Lode Lane by 1897 before moving to Acocks Green by 1911.
Miss Dora Phillips, volunteer at Berkswell Rectory Auxiliary Hospital, died on 1st November 1918, aged 21. On the same day, Lance Corporal Thomas Charles Thompson, 2nd/8th Battalion, Worcestershire Regiment, was killed in action in France.
28-year-old Company Quartermaster Sergeant George Ernest Jenks, Canadian Railway Troops, died of pleural pneumonia at the Camp Hospital, Niagara on 27th October 1918 after suffering from influenza.
Solihull Life 