Capturing, preserving and sharing Solihull's history. Also commemorating local casualties from the First World War #SolihullRemembers
Many local men and youths went away to war and the local Voluntary Aid Detachment Hospital set up at Prospect Villas in Marston Green served to provide all too necessary care for the wounded who returned home. Sadly 13 were never to return from this conflict.
Continue reading “Marston Green VAD Hospital”
In 1937, there was to be a celebration in Marston Green with the Coronation of King George Vl and Queen Elizabeth. A Coronation Celebrations Committee was made up of many of the local public figures and between them they organised a day of events starting at 9.30 in the morning and closing with a bonfire and fireworks display at 10.00 that night.
Continue reading “Marston Green: Coronation Day 1937”
17th April 2022 is the 85th anniversary of the laying of the Foundation Stone of St Leonard’s Church, Marston Green.
Continue reading “St Leonard’s Church, Marston Green”Company Sergeant Major Frederick James Carless DCM died of pneumonia whilst serving with the 1st/5th Battalion, Lancashire Fusiliers. He was 22 years old.
21-year-old Signaller Frederick James Mellish died on 26th September 1918 whilst serving with the 297th Siege Battery Royal Garrison Artillery. He died at No. 3 Canadian General Hospital, Bolougne of bronchial pneumonia and wounds from a gas shell.
Continue reading “26th September 1918”Lance Corporal Joseph Austin was killed in action on 19th August 1918 whilst serving with the 10th Battalion, The Queen’s (Royal West Surrey Regiment), having previously been in the Royal Warwickshire Regiment.
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.
Four local men died on 22nd August 1917: Corporal Alfred John Collins, 2nd/4th Battalion, Oxford and Bucks Light Infantry; Private Charles Edmund Frost, 6th Battalion, Somerset Light Infantry; Private Albert Maybury, 2/4th Battalion, Oxford and Bucks Light Infantry; and Private Frederick George Skidmore, 1st/7th Battalion, Royal Warwickshire Regiment. The first three have no known grave and so they are commemorated on the Tyne Cot Memorial.
19-year-old Private Hubert Simpson was killed in action on 10th August 1917, serving with the 11th Battalion, Royal Warwickshire Regiment. He was born in Birmingham in 1898, and was the youngest of the two children born to parents Joseph (a machinist) and Emily (née Davis) who had married at St Paul’s Church, Birmingham in October 1886. Their eldest child, Clarisse, was born in 1895.
Private George Herbert Smith, 9th Company, Machine Gun Corps, died on 10th May 1917, aged 20. He was born in Marston Green and was the second of the five children (three sons, two daughters) of parents James (a railway plate layer) and Florence Mary (née Harvey) who had married at Bickenhill in 1894. Two of their three sons were killed during the First World War – the youngest, Sydney Harvey (1911-1997) was too young to serve in the war.
Solihull Life 