sharing Solihull's local history
Three men with a local connection lost their lives on active service on 28th June 1918:
25-year-old Corporal William Reginald Finley, 1st Life Guards, died of wounds on 20th May 1918 after being injured by an aerial bomb some days before. Born in Bentley Heath, Solihull in 1892, he was the only son of parents William Robert and Elizabeth (née Ravenhill) who had married in Aston in 1889. The couple also had four daughters.
Four local men lost their lives on 14th April 1918 whilst on active service. Private George Bellamy, Labour Corps; Gunner Francis Thomas East, 83rd Battery, 11th Brigade, Royal Field Artillery, Lance Corporal Walter Mucklow, 4th Battalion Worcestershire Regiment and Private John Tonks, 2nd/7th Battalion, Royal Warwickshire Regiment.
Two local men died on active service on 12th April 1918 – 20-year-old Private James Prentice, 1st Battalion, Wiltshire Regiment and 19-year-old Lance Bombardier Harvey Walter Watts, 378th Battery, 169th Brigade, Royal Field Artillery.
Two local men lost their lives on active service on 9th April 1918. Captain Edward Grafton Herbert MC, Royal Warwickshire Regiment but attached to the Machine Gun Corps, and Pioneer Eric Stones, 3rd Special Company, Royal Engineers. Coincidentally, both men had worked for the same Birmingham brassfoundry.
Private Arthur Noel Cox, 20th Hussars was killed in action on 1st April 1918. He was the 11th of 12 children of whom three had died by 1911. One of Arthur’s brothers – Edward John Cox, a regular soldier – had died in 1915 of illness, after being involved in the ‘Wayfarer incident’.
Gunner Alfred Bartlett, aged 40, died on 16th March 1918 whilst serving at Boyton Camp, Wiltshire with the 4th “B” Reserve Brigade, Royal Field Artillery. He was born in 1877 in Stow-on-the-Wold and was the third of the ten children of parents George and Elizabeth (née Webb) who had married in Elizabeth’s home parish of Great Rollright, Oxfordshire in 1871.
Staff Nurse Edith Mary Cammack, Territorial Force Nursing Service (TFNS), died at the 4th Southern General Hospital in Plymouth on 1st March 1918 as a result of dysentry and malaria contracted whilst on duty in Salonika with 30 Stationary Hospital.
Lance Corporal Thomas George Robinson died of wounds on 9th February 1918, serving with the 10th Battalion Royal Warwickshire Regiment. Known as George, he was born in Copt Heath on 10th May 1895 and baptised at St Alphege Church, Solihull on 4th August 1895.
Two local men lost their lives on active service on 23rd December 1917 – Sergeant Walter Henry Mitchell, 111th Company, Machine Gun Corps, and Able Seaman John Henry Williams, Royal Naval Reserve, serving on HMS Surprise.
Solihull Life 