sharing Solihull's local history
Two local men lost their lives on 9th January 1917 whilst serving in the Armed Forces.
Commander The Hon. Richard Orlando Beaconsfield Bridgeman RN, DSO, the son of the 4th Earl of Bradford of Castle Bromwich Hall, drowned whilst on active service in East Africa (modern Tanzania) with the Royal Navy. Second Lieutenant Arthur Gordon Robinson died in France whilst serving with the 2nd Special Company, Royal Engineers.
Captain Guy Livingston Boddington, 6th Battalion Royal Warwickshire Regiment, was reported missing in action, believed captured, on 19th December 1916, after going out on night patrol. His parents, Samuel (a woollen merchant) and Eliza, lived at Hillfield Hall, Solihull having moved there from Edgbaston between 1901 and 1905.
Private Arthur Edward Oakes died on 18th December 1916, aged 18, serving with the 2nd/8th Battalion Royal Warwickshire Regiment. He was born in Solihull on 1st April 1898, and was baptised at St Alphege Church on 12th June 1898. He was the sixth of the eight children known to have been born to parents, Frank (a bricklayer) and Mary (née Sabin), who had married in Stretton-on-Fosse in 1888.
Two men with a connection to Solihull died on 24th November 1916 – old Silhillian, Private William Anthony Machin, 16th Battalion, Midddlesex Regiment, and Corporal John William Skelcher, 5th Battalion, Oxford and Bucks Light Infantry.
Private Frederick Clifford Baulcombe, 7th Battalion, Wiltshire Regiment, died in Salonika on 22nd November 1916. Aged 22, he was the second member of the Baulcombe family to be killed in action. His eldest brother, Frank, died in 1915. Two other brothers – Harry and Harold – also served in the war and survived.
24-year-old Second Lieutenant Shepherd Stones, known as “Shep”, was killed in action on 3rd November 1916, serving with the 5th Battalion Northumberland Fusiliers. The youngest of two children, he was born in Sale, Cheshire on 10th October 1892. His father, John Herbert Stones, a paper merchant, died on 2nd July 1893, aged 30, leaving his widow, Elizabeth (née Holmes) with two sons under the age of three. Tragically, both boys would be killed in the war.
Two local men died on 23rd October 1916. Private Oscar William Bowen, 3rd Battalion Warwickshire Volunteer Regiment died at home, Ladbrook Park, Tanworth-in-Arden, and Driver Charles Henry Haynes, 31st Bde. Small Arms Ammunition Column, Royal Field Artillery who was killed in Salonika when his dugout collapsed.
Three local men lost their lives on 9th October 1916: Private Ernest Davis and Private Charles Thomas Field, both of the 6th Battalion, Oxford & Bucks Light Infantry; and Rifleman Reginald Henry Whorwood, 1st/9th Battalion London Regiment (Queen Victoria’s Rifles).
35-year-old Private Harry Edgington died in France on 8th October 1916 serving with the 13th Battalion Canadian Infantry.
He was born in Earlswood and, although his date of birth is given in Army attestation papers as 23rd December 1882, it seems he was three months old at the time of the 1881 census, so it’s likely that his birth was actually on 23rd December 1880.
Rifleman John Thomas Harrison was killed on 7th October 1916, aged 20, whilst serving with the 1st/8th Battalion London Regiment (Post Office Rifles). Also killed was 35-year-old Lance Corporal Robert Dudley, 8th (Service Battalion), The Royal Fusiliers (City of London Regiment).
Solihull Life 