Second Lieutenant Kenneth William Allan Duncan, aged 23, died on 8th May 1918 serving with the 10th Battalion The King’s (Liverpool Regiment), attached to the 6th Battalion Seaforth Highlanders. On the same day, Private Ernest Austin, 11th Battalion Durham Light Infantry, died of illness in a German Prisoner of War hospital.
6th May 1918
Private Joseph Albert Jeffcott, 2nd/7th Battalion Lancashire Fusiliers died of wounds on 6th May 1918 at the 1st Southern General Hospital, Stourbridge. This was the infirmary at Stourbridge Union Workhouse, which was commandeered for war service in June 1915. After several name changes, it became Wordsley Hospital in the 1970s.
5th May 1918
21-year-old Captain Clement Martineau, 10th Battalion Royal Warwickshire Regiment, died of wounds on 5th May 1918 after being badly wounded and taken prisoner on 10th April 1918.
Continue reading “5th May 1918”4th May 1918
Private Gilbert Scott Osborne died of wounds on 4th May 1918 whilst serving with the 1st Battalion, Royal Berkshire Regiment. Born in Handsworth in 1888, he attended Solihull School, becoming a die sinker with a silversmith on leaving.
30th April 1918
Private Alfred Stevens MM, 99th Field Ambulance, Royal Army Medical Corps, died of his wounds at Keighley War Hospital on 30th April 1918, having been invalided to the UK. Born in Shirley in 1889, Alfred became a clerk with the Britannic Assurance company.
28th April 1918
Rifleman Thomas Clifford Williams died of wounds on 28th April 1918 whilst serving with the London Regiment (Queen Victoria’s Rifles). He was 27 years old and was born in Solihull in 1890.
26th April 1918
Private Herbert Frank Crofts died of wounds on 26th April 1918 whilst serving with the 2nd Battalion Devonshire Regiment. He was 19 years old.
25th April 1918
23-year-old Second Lieutenant Arthur George Ansell, 1st Field Survey Company, Royal Engineers, died of gas poisoning in No. 8 Red Cross Hospital, Boulogne, France on 25th April 1918, after being gassed at Passchendaele. He was the eldest of the three children of parents Arthur John (an agent for the Prudential Assurance Company at Solihull) and Emma (née Lynes) who had married in Notting Hill in 1893. Arthur John Ansell was a widower – his first wife, Kate Purvey (1867-1892) had died in childbirth in 1892, after just one year of marriage.
24th April 1918
Two local men lost their lives on 24th April 1918 whilst on active service – Corporal William Henry Harrison, 1st Battalion Cheshire Regiment, and Private Arthur Ronald Prentice, 14th Battalion, Gloucestershire Regiment.
22nd April 1918
Major Frank Northey Harston MC was killed in action on 22nd April 1918 serving with the 11th Brigade, East Lancashire Regiment. He was born in Blatchinworth, Rochdale, Lancashire in 1890 and was the second of the three sons of parents John Edwin (HM Inspector of Factories) and Bessie Anne Northey (née Plucknett) who had married in Devon in 1886. The youngest son, Lionel Brunyee Harston (1893-1894), died as an infant.
Solihull Life 