sharing Solihull's local history
Four local men are known to have died on 2nd July 1916, all serving with the Royal Warwickshire Regiment:
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.
Five men with a connection to Olton are known to have lost their lives on 1st July 1916:
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:
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.
Two men from Castle Bromwich and one from Marston Green died on the first day of the First Battle of the Somme
Continue reading “1st July 1916 – Castle Bromwich and Marston Green”
Private Edmund Yapp, 6th Battalion, Oxford and Bucks Light Infantry, was killed in action on 30th June 1916 and is buried in Vlamertinghe Military Cemetery, Belgium. Born in the Bickenhill area, Soldiers Died in the Great War records was living in Shirley at the time he enlisted in the Army.
Lance Corporal Clive Charteris Latch died of wounds, aged 25, on 28th June 1916 whilst serving with the 9th Battalion, Royal Inniskilling Fusiliers. He was admitted to hospital on 25th June 1916, suffering from a gunshot wound to the “upper extremities” and a compound fracture of the wound. He was transferred to the sick convoy the following day and died in hospital in Rouen two days later.
Temporary Second Lieutenant Thomas Jessop Weiss, aged 27, died of wounds on 27th June 1916, serving with the 151st Brigade, Royal Field Artillery (although some sources do record that he was killed in action). He apparently lived at Mount Pleasant, Berkswell and was described by the Vicar of Berkswell in the Coventry Evening Telegraph, 3rd August 1916, as a “quiet, retiring man… esteemed for his generous nature and straightforward simplicity of life.”
Thomas is buried at Cerisy-Gailly Military Cemetery, France and is also commemorated on Berkswell War Memorial.
Three local men lost their lives on 16th June 1916:
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.
30-year-old Private William Thomas Badger died at No. 10 Casualty Clearing Station of wounds sustained at Mount Sorrel, Belgium and is buried at Lijssenthoek Military Cemetery. He was serving as a Private with the 3rd Battalion Canadian Pioneers, having emigrated to Canada by 1906.
Solihull Life 