A wartime marriage

100 years ago two cousins in their 30s met for the first time in Solihull and fell in love.

At the Core Library, Solihull, we have photocopies of some letters written by an Australian First World War soldier – Private Frederick William Forder – from a convalescent hospital in England in 1916 and on board a ship home to Australia in 1919 (our ref.: D125).

The letters were sent to his wife, Edith Forder (née Hobbins) whom he had married at St Alphege Church, Solihull on 5th June 1918. It seems that after six months of married life in England, the couple were parted when Frederick returned to Australia in January 1919, and they never saw each other again.

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13 February 2017 0

13th February 1917

Private Sidney Britt died of wounds on 13th February 1917, serving with the 4th Battalion, South Wales Borderers. He was the youngest of ten children from Elmdon, three of whom died in the war. Serving regular soldier, Albert Henry, was killed in 1914 and his brother, William Henry (who served in the militia 1900-1902) died in November 1917. Sidney was the second of the brothers to die in the war.

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13 February 2017 0

11th February 1917

Two men with a local connection died on 11th February 1917. Temporary sub-Lieutenant Walter Holden Legge, Royal Naval Division, attached to Royal Flying Corps, died in Solihull Hospital, whilst Lance Corporal Hubert Woodfield MM, 7th Battalion Duke of Cornwall’s Light Infantry died in France.

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11 February 2017 0

9th February 1917

Sergeant Thomas Richard Bradley, 159th Heavy Battery, Royal Garrison Artillery was killed in action on 9th February 1917. He is commemorated on the Solihull war memorial but, assuming that we have found the correct person in Army records, we don’t yet know of his connection with the Solihull area.

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9 February 2017 0

6th February 1917

Lance Corporal Sydney Howard Falconbridge was killed in action on 6th February 1917 serving with the 143rd Company, Machine Gun Corps. He was born in Hampton-in-Arden in 1893 to parents, George (a police constable) and Ellen Ann (née Knight), who had married at Hatton in 1888. He was the third of the couple’s eight children (four sons, four daughters). Some records spell his name as Sidney.

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6 February 2017 0

29th January 1917

Private George William Irons of 11th Battalion, The King’s (Liverpool) Regiment, died in France on 29th January 1917. He was the second of three brothers from Castle Bromwich to die in the war.

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29 January 2017 0

26th January 1917

Corporal William Robert Smith, 4th Battalion Coldstream Guards died of testicular cancer in Birmingham on 26th January 1917, two days after his 21st birthday. He was the youngest of the nine children (four sons, five daughters) of parents Richard (an agricultural labourer) and Ann (née Ward). The couple had married in 1875 and then lived at Shelly Green before moving to Bentley Heath by 1891, where Richard’s parents, William and Maria, also lived. The family remained at Bentley Heath until at least 1911.

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26 January 2017 0

25th January 1917

41-year-old Private John Jones from Shirley was killed in action on 25th January 1917, serving with the 9th Battalion, Royal Warwickshire Regiment. Also killed on the same day was Private John Henry Watkins, an Old Silhillian, who was serving with the 9th Battalion, Worcestershire Regiment. Both men are buried in Amara War Cemetery, situated in modern-day Iraq.

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25 January 2017 0

23rd January 1917

Second Lieutenant Beresford Frank Parsons (Royal Flying Corps, was killed on 23rd January 1917 when an aeroplane in which he was a passenger, crashed in Charlton Park, Malmesbury, Wiltshire. He sustained a fracture of the base of the skull and was buried with full military honours at Yardley Cemetery.

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23 January 2017 0

16th January 1917

Private Shirley Palmer Coton from Copt Heath was killed in action in Mesopotamia on 16th January 1917, serving with the 9th Battalion Worcestershire Regiment.

Baptised at St Alphege Church, Solihull on Christmas Eve, 1893, he was the only son of parents James (a labourer) and Julia (née Smith) who had married at the church in 1892. He also had a younger sister, Winifred Mary (1896-1927) who was baptised at Knowle as Victoria Winifred Mary on 12th April 1896.

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16 January 2017 0