Second Lieutenant Thomas Pargetter Jones was killed in action on 31st October 1918 whilst serving in France with the Royal Air Force. He was the third of three brothers to be killed in the war – younger brothers Charles Victor (1892-1916) and Collins Jeffreys (1893-1916) enlisted in the 1st Birmingham Pals together on 1st January 1915 and died within hours of each other on 22nd/23rd July 1916.
19th August 1918
Lance Corporal Joseph Austin was killed in action on 19th August 1918 whilst serving with the 10th Battalion, The Queen’s (Royal West Surrey Regiment), having previously been in the Royal Warwickshire Regiment.
3rd October 1917
Private Keith Garraway Chatfield, 1st Battalion Australian Infantry, Australian Imperial Force, died on 3rd October 1917. We’re not absolutely sure that this is the same Keith Chatfield who is commemorated at Bickenhill, as there seems no obvious link. However, this is the only Keith Chatfield listed on the Commonwealth War Graves Commission website, and there doesn’t seem to be another Keith Chatfield mentioned in the local area.
22nd August 1917
Four local men died on 22nd August 1917: Corporal Alfred John Collins, 2nd/4th Battalion, Oxford and Bucks Light Infantry; Private Charles Edmund Frost, 6th Battalion, Somerset Light Infantry; Private Albert Maybury, 2/4th Battalion, Oxford and Bucks Light Infantry; and Private Frederick George Skidmore, 1st/7th Battalion, Royal Warwickshire Regiment. The first three have no known grave and so they are commemorated on the Tyne Cot Memorial.
10th May 1917
Private George Herbert Smith, 9th Company, Machine Gun Corps, died on 10th May 1917, aged 20. He was born in Marston Green and was the second of the five children (three sons, two daughters) of parents James (a railway plate layer) and Florence Mary (née Harvey) who had married at Bickenhill in 1894. Two of their three sons were killed during the First World War – the youngest, Sydney Harvey (1911-1997) was too young to serve in the war.
29th April 1917
Two local men lost their lives in France on 29th April 1917, Private Elliott Spencer, “B” Company, 11th Battalion Royal Warwickshire Regiment, and Private Francis Edward Thornley, 13th Battalion, Royal Warwickshire Regiment.
Continue reading “29th April 1917”2nd December 1916
Private Richard William Adams, 1st/6th Battalion, Royal Warwickshire Regiment was killed in action on 2nd December 1916, as was Private Percy Sears of the Army Service Corps, attached 2nd/1st (South Midland) Field Ambulance.
25th July 1916
21-year-old James Enoch Smith died on 25th July 1916, serving as a Private with the Royal Warwickshire Regiment. He was the eldest of five children, and seems to have been named after his father, James Smith, a platelayer on the railway, and his maternal grandfather, Enoch Harvey, a bricklayer. His paternal grandfather, also James Smith, was also a platelayer on the railway.
22nd July 1916
Lance Corporal Collins Jeffreys (sometimes Jeffries) Jones was killed in action during attacks on High Wood, on the Somme, on 22nd July 1916 whilst serving with the 14th Battalion, Royal Warwickshire Regiment. His older brother, Charles Victor Jones, also a Lance Corporal in the Royal Warwickshire Regiment, was killed in the same action on the following day.
16th June 1916
Three local men lost their lives on 16th June 1916:
- Corporal Henry Elliott, Royal Warwickshire Regiment
- Bombardier Edward Henry Prince, Royal Field Artillery
- Sergeant Leonard Wilson, Royal Field Artillery
Henry Elliott is buried at the Fauborg d’Amiens Cemetery in Arras, France. Edward Prince and Leonard Wilson are both buried at Hebuterne Military Cemetery in the Pas de Calais, about 20 km south-west of Arras.
Solihull Life 