sharing Solihull's local history
Private Charles Basey, 9th Battalion Gloucestershire Regiment, died of enteric fever on 15th October 1916 and is buried at Salonika (Lembet Road) Military Cemetery, Greece.
Enteric, or typhoid, fever was spread by the ingestion of food or water contaminated by faeces, and was a significant problem given the poor hygiene and lack of sanitation in the trenches. The ever-present vermin and flies ensured that typhoid fever was a common affliction among First World War soldiers.
Corporal Horace Leslie Hill died as a result of wounds received whilst riding a motor cycle on active service, having enlisted in the motor cycle section of the Royal Engineers in August 1914. Born in Birmingham just three weeks before the 1891 census was taken, Horace was the third of the six children (four boys, two girls) of parents George Frederick (an iron plate manufacturer) and Ellen Elizabeth. He attended Camp Hill Grammar School and, prior to enlistment, was employed by printing company Billings Bros., St Paul’s Square, Birmingham.
Between 1901 and 1911 the family moved from Birmingham to Claremont, St Bernard’s Road, Olton. By this time George Hill was recorded as a galvanizer and japanner. Information from researchers at St Margaret’s Church, Olton is that Horace was one of the church’s first servers.
Two men with a local connection and who were both serving in the 1st Battalion, Royal Warwickshire, were killed in action on 12th October 1916. Neither Private Ernest Lockley nor Acting Corporal Matthew Forrest has a known grave, and so both are commemorated on the Thiepval Memorial.
Continue reading “12th October 1916”Private Sydney William Chapman died of wounds on 11th October 1916 serving in Mesopotamia with “C” Company, 1st Battalion, York and Lancaster Regiment. He was born in Sittingbourne, Kent in 1891. His father, Alfred Thomas Chapman, was a farmer and, later, a butcher.
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).
Private Edgar Charles Frost, aged 21, of the 23rd Battalion Middlesex Regiment, and Private Frederick Edgar Grimes, aged 29, of the 2nd Battalion Coldstream Guards, both died of wounds in France on 5th October 1916.
Two local men from Knowle died in France on 4th October 1916, whilst serving with the 7th Battalion Queen’s Own (Royal West Kent Regiment). The men – 35-year-old Lance Corporal William Abraham John Bird and 29-year-old Private George Samuel Thompson were friends and had sung together in the choir at Knowle parish church. They were killed by the same shell.
Old Silhillian Claude Malim Messiter, aged 36, was killed in action on 2nd October 1916, serving as a Rifleman with “D” Coy. 1st/9th Battalion, London Regiment (Queen Victoria’s Rifles). Born in Handsworth in 1880, Claude was the sixth of the eight children (three sons, five daughters) of solicitor Frederick Messiter (1839-1925) and his wife, Mary Isabel (1842-1925).
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