We don’t have very much information about Company Sergeant Major Arthur Callaghan who was killed in action on 7th July 1916 whilst serving with the 9th Battalion Royal Fusiliers (City of London Regiment). He has no known grave and is commemorated on the Thiepval Memorial. He is also commemorated locally on the Hockley Heath war memorial, as well as on memorials in St Thomas’s Church, Hockley Heath, and Umberslade Baptist Church.
6th July 1916
40-year-old Private James Stephen Wrench, of Bentley Heath died of fever in Mesopotamia (modern-day Iraq) on 6th July 1916. He was born in Leamington Spa in 1875, where his father, James, worked as a cabinet maker. James Stephen Wrench had moved to Knowle by March 1900 when he married Louisa Gibbs at the parish church. By 1911, the couple were living in Bentley Heath. Their only child, May Louisa Wrench, was born in 1900 and lived in the local area until her death in 1973.
5th July 1916
Private Walter Charles Taylor of “C” Company, 7th Battalion, the South Lancashire Regiment died on 5th July 1916. He was recorded by the Commonwealth War Graves Commission as being 18 years old, although his service record gives his age on enlistment on 23rd April 1915 as 19 years and three days. It seems that he lied about his age as, although 18-year-olds could enlist, soldiers couldn’t serve overseas until they had reached the age of 19.
4th July 1916
Two local men with a connection to Solihull were killed in action on 4th July 1916 – Second Lieutenant Albert Theodore Vardy, 2nd Battalion, Royal Warwickshire Regiment and Private William Ewart Parrott, 6th Battalion, Wiltshire Regiment.
3rd July 1916
Two men with a local connection are known to have died on 3rd Jul 1916 as a result of their war service:
- Lieutenant Colonel William Burnett DSO, attended Solihull School
- Second Lieutenant Siegfried Thomas Hinkley, attended Packwood Haugh School
2nd July 1916
Four local men are known to have died on 2nd July 1916, all serving with the Royal Warwickshire Regiment:
- Private John Franklin, of Olton
- Drummer Frank Nash, of Shirley
- Private William Richard Pittom, of Shirley
- Second Lieutenant Cyril George Williamson, former pupil of Solihull School
1st July 1916
At “zero hour” – 7.30am on Saturday 1st July 1916 – officers in the trenches blew whistles and British troops scrambled up ladders along a 14-mile stretch of the Western Front. As instructed, they advanced at a slow, steady pace across No Man’s Land. They were met with a hail of German machine-gun and rifle fire. Accurate German shell barrages of the Allied assembly trenches also cut off their lines of support.
1st July 1916 – Solihull and Shirley
Seven men with a connection to Solihull or Shirley are known to have died on 1st July 1916:
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- Private James Burton, Middlesex Regiment
- Private Harold Clifton, Royal Warwickshire Regiment
- Private Frederick Percy Cooper, Royal Warwickshire Regiment
- Second Lieutentant William Henry Furse, Northumberland Fusiliers
- Private John Palmer Lyndon, Royal Warwickshire Regiment
- Private Richard James Smith, Royal Warwickshire Regiment
- Private James Webster, Royal Warwickshire Regiment
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1st July 1916 – Olton
Five men with a connection to Olton are known to have lost their lives on 1st July 1916:
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- Lance Corporal John Herbert Hockley, Royal Newfoundland Regiment
- Second Lieutenant Horace Birchall Jones, North Staffordshire Regiment
- Lieutenant Donald George Harding Truman, Royal Warwickshire Regiment
- Private Leslie Waters, Royal Warwickshire Regiment
- Private Albert Weale, Royal Warwickshire Regiment
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1st July 1916 – Knowle etc
Ten local men with a connection to the area around Balsall Common, Knowle and, Dorridge died on the first day of the Battle of the Somme, 1st July 1916:
- Second Lieutenant John Balkwill, Royal Warwickshire Regiment
- Second Lieutenant Geoffrey Jermyn Brand, General List (attached 101st Trench Mortar Battery)
- Private Thomas Cooper, Royal Warwickshire Regiment
- Captain Cyril Thomas Morris Davies, Royal Warwickshire Regiment
- Private Walter Jennings, Royal Warwickshire Regiment
- Lieutenant Colonel Maurice Nicholl Kennard MC, West Yorkshire Regiment (Prince of Wales’s Own)
- Captain Stratford Walter Ludlow, Royal Warwickshire Regiment
- Captain Cyril Thomas Morris Davies, Royal Warwickshire Regiment
- Private Alfred Mutlow, North Staffordshire Regiment
- Private George Arthur Smitten, Royal Warwickshire Regiment
- Captain Willingham Franklin Gell Wiseman, Lincolnshire Regiment
Three of the men – John Balkwill, Thomas Cooper, and Stratford Ludlow, are commemorated in a stained glass window in the Soldiers’ Chapel at Knowle Parish Church, which was given in memory of Stratford Ludlow by his father, Brigadier-General Ludlow. It was dedicated by the Bishop of Birmingham on 5th June 1921.
Solihull Life 