27-year-old former Lieutenant Charles Russell Venables died of pulmonary tuberculosis on 21st May 1915. He died at home, Brougham House, Old Warwick Road, Olton, and was buried at Baddesley Clinton.
Continue reading “21st May 1915”19th May 1915
Two local men died on 19th May 1915. Herbert Samuel Wakelin died at home in Olton on 19th May 1915 and is buried at Yardley Cemetery in Birmingham.
Charles Samuel George, who had spent almost all his childhood as an inmate at Marston Green Cottage Homes, died of wounds in France, whilst serving as a Private with the 1st Battalion, South Staffordshire Regiment. He was the brother of Harry George, who had died of wounds on 31st October 1914.
17th May 1915
Regular soldier Sydney Alfred Cockayne, from Catherine-de-Barnes, died of wounds on 17th May 1915 whilst serving as Acting Sergeant Major with the 1st Battalion, King’s Royal Rifle Corps.
He was actually baptised as Alfred Sidney Cockayne, and appears as Alfred on the 1891 and 1901 censuses before being recorded as Sidney Cockayne in 1911. Presumably, preferring to be known by his middle name, he switched the order of his Christian names when he joined the Army. Certainly, all his Army records refer to him as S. A. Cockayne.
14th May 1915
John Augustus Lloyd was born at Hockley Heath on 1st June 1887 and is buried at Umberslade Baptist Church, having died of sickness on 14th May 1915 whilst serving as a Private with the Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire Light Infantry.
13th May 1915
Trooper Percy Edgar Bowen is commemorated on the war memorial at Meriden, which was where he was working when he was called up for active service in 1914.
He was born in Hinckley in 1891, and apparently lived in Hinckley until at least 1911. He was a member of the Leicestershire Yeomanry and was called up for active service when war broke out. It’s known that he first entered a Theatre of War on 2nd November 1914. He died of wounds in Belgium on 13th May 1915 during the Battle of Frezenburg Ridge, the third of six engagements that made up the Second Battle of Ypres. Research by Hinckley Museum indicates that he was initially posted as missing before being declared presumed dead in May 1916.
9th May 1915
Private William Henry Smitten of Knowle was killed on 9th May 1915, just one week after first arriving in France with the Royal Warwicks. On the same day, 25-year-old Lieutenant Thomas Edwin Turner of Solihull and London also died serving with the 13th London Regiment (Kensington Battalion).
8th May 1915
8th May 1915 saw the deaths of two men with a connection to places now in the Solihull Borough:
- Private Harry Betts, 8th Battalion, Australian Infantry (previously of Castle Bromwich)
- Major John Cecil Lancaster, 1st Battalion, Royal Warwickshire Regiment (member of the North Warwickshire Hunt)
7th May 1915
Two former inmates of Marston Green Cottage Homes died on 7th May 1915 whilst serving with the 2nd Battalion, King’s Own Yorkshire Light Infantry.
- Sergeant William Barrett
- Private Harry Roath
29th April 1915
32-year-old Captain (Temporary Acting Major) Godfrey Barker was killed on 29th April 1915, serving in Gallipoli with the Drake Battalion, Royal Naval Division, Royal Marine Light Infantry (R.M.L.I). He was the fourth son of Colonel Sir Francis William James Barker (1841-1924) and Charlotte Jessie (nee Foster) and was born in Malta on 13th January 1883. He attended King’s Edward School, Birmingham before going on to the Royal Naval College, Greenwich.
He was gazetted Second Lieutenant with the R.M.L.I. on 1st September 1901 and was promoted to Lieutenant on 1st July 1902. In the 1911 census, he is recorded as a Lieutenant in the Royal Marines at Deal, Kent. He became a Captain on 1st September 1912, exactly eleven years after his first commission. An announcement was made by the Admiralty on 13th January 1914 to the effect that Captain Barker had been placed on the retired list at his own request. His retirement lasted for only eight months. He rejoined the Colours on 13th September 1914, just over a month after was was declared, and he saw action the following month at the siege of Antwerp with the Portsmouth Battalion (Officer Commanding MGs Royal Marine Brigade). On 9th November 1914 he was appointed Temporary Major, then going to the Dardanelles as Adjutant of the Drake Battalion.
26th April 1915
Described as “a Dorsetshire Man” in the announcement of his death in the Leamington Spa Courier of 7th May 1915, Edward Nugent Bankes was actually born on 3rd October 1875 in Wraysbury, Buckinghamshire, and his father, grandfather and great-grandfather were all born in London.
Solihull Life 