Private Norman Philip Barlow, 102nd Battalion, Canadian Infantry and Second Lieutenant Lucien Herbert Higgs, Royal Flying Corps both died on 8th June 1917 whilst on active service.
4th May 1917
Three local men lost their lives in France and Italy on 4th May 1917 – Acting Sergeant Thomas Alfred Johnson MM, 76th Field Ambulance, Royal Army Medical Corps; Private George Thomas Perkins, 2nd Battalion, Royal Warwickshire Regiment; and Private John Henry Vernon, 1st/4th Battalion, Duke of Cornwall’s Light Infantry.
29th April 1917
Two local men lost their lives in France on 29th April 1917, Private Elliott Spencer, “B” Company, 11th Battalion Royal Warwickshire Regiment, and Private Francis Edward Thornley, 13th Battalion, Royal Warwickshire Regiment.
Continue reading “29th April 1917”25th April 1917
Two local men died on active service on 25th April 1917. 21-year-old Private Douglas Walker Clarke, 12th Battalion, Hampshire Regiment was killed in action in Salonika, and Private Frederick Perks, 15th Battalion, Royal Warwickshire Regiment was killed in France.
24th April 1917
Two local men died in France on 24th April 1917. Second Lieutenant Harold James Goodwin, 135th Siege Battery, Royal Garrison Artillery was killed in action and Gunner Leslie Richards Reeve, D Company, Machine Gun Corps (Heavy Section) (later Tank Corps), died of wounds. On the same day, Private Walter Long, 7th Battalion, Wiltshire Regiment, was killed in action in Salonika.
23rd April 1917
Four local men died on 23rd April 1917: Private John Evelyn Biddle and Private James Miles, both of the 11th Battalion, Royal Warwickshire Regiment; Lance Corporal Thomas Abel Holmes, of 1st Battalion Devonshire Regiment, and Captain Edward Maurice Gonner M.C., of the 16th Church Lads Brigade Battalion, King’s Royal Rifle Corps.
24th February 1917
On 24th February 1917, Acting Corporal Walter George Riggs was killed whilst on duty in the trenches in Vimy Ridge with the 26th Battalion (New Brunswick Regiment), Canadian Infantry. His foot was blown off by the explosion of an enemy fishtail bomb. Comrades rendered first aid and he was taken to a dressing station and evacuated to No. 42 Casualty Clearing Station where he died. He is buried in Aubigny Communal Cemetery Extension, France.
Continue reading “24th February 1917”17th February 1917
Private Herbert Horton died on 17th February 1917 serving with the 12th Battalion Middlesex Regiment. Born in Handsworth in 1880, he was the third of the seven children (five sons, two daughters) of parents, Albert, a schoolmaster and Kate Louisa (née Carley) who had married in St Pancras, London in 1876. Herbert was educated at King Edward’s School, Aston, before joining the Midland Bank as a cashier at the Birmingham head office.
19th November 1916
26-year-old Private James Cooney, 4th Battalion, Royal Warwickshire Regiment, died on 19th November 1916 in Carisbroke military hospital on the Isle of Wight as a result of flu and cardiac failure. He was buried at Olton Franciscan Friary in Solihull.
He was born in Birmingham in 1886 but was orphaned by the age of six. His mother, Catherine (née Finan), died in 1888 at the age of 33, whilst his father, Thomas, died in 1891, aged 38. James and his older sister, Annie, a dressmaker, moved in with their maternal aunt. Their older brother, Thomas, joined the Army in 1898, and served in the Boer War for two years, followed by four years in India. He was transferred to the Army Reserves in 1906, and was called up on 5th August 1914. He was discharged a year later on the termination of his engagement, without having been posted overseas.
13th Nov 1916
Private Harry Corbett, 14th Battalion, Worcestershire Regiment, was killed in action on 13th November 1916. He has no known grave, and is commemorated on the Thiepval Memorial. One of eight children (two of whom had died by 1911), he was born in 1878 in Small Heath, Birmingham but moved to Olton with his parents, George and Elizabeth, and siblings sometime between 1881 and 1883.
Solihull Life 