On 1st February 1919, Captain and Quartermaster Nicholas Charles Harvey MBE, aged 53, took his own life at the Red Lion Hotel, Atherstone. He had been a regular soldier for about 23 years and served with the 19th Hussars in Egypt and India and with the 12th Lancers in the Boer War. At the time of the 1901 census he was stationed in Ireland.
27th January 1919
Company Sergeant Major Frederick James Carless DCM died of pneumonia whilst serving with the 1st/5th Battalion, Lancashire Fusiliers. He was 22 years old.
26th January 1919
Private Harold Clive Hope, 1st Battalion, Royal Berkshire Regiment, transferred to 736th Agricultural Company, Labour Corps, died at home in Moseley, Birmingham on 26th January 1919. He was born in Hampton-in-Arden in 1887, and was the son of the village schoolmaster, Thomas Hope, attending George Fentham School in the village.
31st December 1918
Captain William Leefe Robinson VC died of cardiac arrest resulting from influenza. He died at Lavender Cottage, Harrow Weald, Middlesex after serving throughout the war.
He was born in India on 14th July 1895, and was the youngest of seven children. His was educated at St Bees College, Cumbria 1909-1914, and extracts from letters to his mother show he hoped to gain entrance to Sandhurst after leaving school and obtain a commission in either the Indian Army or British Army.
25th December 1918
Captain Edward Rainsford Harrison, 524th Company, 61st Divisional Train, Army Service Corps, died in hospital in Abbeville, France on Christmas Day, 1918. The cause of death was double pneumonia following influenza contracted whilst on active service.
23rd December 1918
Private Horace Alfred Hawkes, 5th Battalion, Worcestershire Regiment, died at Heathcote Infectious Diseases Hospital, Leamington Spa on 23rd December 1918. He was born in Leek Wootton on 15th May 1895 and was the seventh of the eight children (three sons, five daughters) of parents, Thomas and Emily (née Biddle), who had married in Cubbington in 1875.
20th December 1918
Leading Seaman Edgar William King, of HMS St Vincent, died of influenza and pneumonia in the Royal Navy Hospital, South Queensferry, on 20th December 1918. Born on 18th May 1888 in Hampton-in-Arden, he was the son of the village postmaster, Walter King, and his wife, Elizabeth Ann (née Williams).
12th December 1918
Gunner George Davies, 12th Mortar Battery, Royal Garrison Artillery, died on 12th December 1918 in the Royal Infirmary, Liverpool, aged 26. He was born in Alderley, Cheshire in 1892, but baptised at Meriden, where the family had moved by 1894.
7th December 1918
Private Arthur Oswald Hemming died of heart failure on 7th December 1918 whilst serving with the Wiltshire Regiment. He died at home in New Street, Castle Bromwich and is buried at SS Mary & Margaret’s Church, Castle Bromwich.
5th December 1918
Private William Henry Cooper, 2nd Aircraft Depot, Royal Air Force died in France of influenza and bronchial pneumonia. He was born in Shirley on 1st November 1873 and, in 1881, was living in Bills Lane with parents William (a metal roller) and Louisa Amelia (née Harrison) ,who had married in Moseley in 1866. Harry, as he was known, was the third of the couple’s four children (two sons, two daughters).
Solihull Life 