Lieutenant Colonel Rowland John Beech died on 30th August 1919, aged 64, whilst Commander of the Warwickshire Yeomanry. He had served in France with the 36th Brigade, Royal Field Artillery during the First World War but was invalided home in 1918.
27th June 1919
Private George Harold Timms Poole, Royal Army Veterinary Corps, died on 27th June 1919 when he accidentally drowned whilst serving with the 4th Cavalry. He is commemorated on the Jerusalem Memorial to the Missing. Researchers in Meriden have discovered that he was buried 150 yards south-west of Homs Railway Station, Syria, but the grave must have been lost, hence his commemoration on the Jerusalem Memorial.
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.
12th September 1918
Two men with a local connection lost their lives on 12th September 1918 whilst on active service – Sergeant Allen Noel Birkett Barker, 66th Brigade HQ, Royal Garrison Artillery and Lance Corporal Philip West, 2nd/4th Battalion, Hampshire Regiment.
18th May 1918
Gunner Ralph George Baker, 309 Siege Battery, Honourable Artillery Company, died of pneumonia on 18th May 1918 in a German Hospital as a Prisoner of War. He was born in Handsworth on 12th July 1898, and was the second of the three sons of Charles (a jeweller) and Amelia (known as Minne) (née Deakin).
6th May 1918
Private Joseph Albert Jeffcott, 2nd/7th Battalion Lancashire Fusiliers died of wounds on 6th May 1918 at the 1st Southern General Hospital, Stourbridge. This was the infirmary at Stourbridge Union Workhouse, which was commandeered for war service in June 1915. After several name changes, it became Wordsley Hospital in the 1970s.
20th April 1918
Two local men lost their lives on 20th April 1918 whilst on active service in France – 20-year-old Private James Franklin, 10th Battalion, Royal Warwickshire Regiment and 21-year-old Second Lieutenant Frederick Harold Hoyle of 2nd Battalion, West Yorkshire Regiment (Prince of Wales’s Own).
13th April 1918
Two local men lost their lives on 13th April 1918 serving with the 14th Battalion, Royal Warwickshire Regiment – 31-year-old Private Leonard Russell and 22-year-old Sergeant Robert Alban Wright.
10th April 1918
Two local men died on 10th April 1918. Second Lieutenant Percival Horace Batchelor, Royal Warwickshire Regiment attd. 2nd/6th Bn. North Staffordshire Regiment and Private Thomas Teerheege, 3rd Battalion, Worcestershire Regiment.
12th November 1917
Captain Rudolf Valintine M.C., 1st Squadron, C Company, Warwickshire Yeomanry, died on 12th November of wounds received during the “Glorious Charge” at Huj, Gaza, which took place on 8th November. His local connection with the Solihull area is that he was a member of the North Warwickshire Hunt, which met at Meriden.
