sharing Solihull's local history
Captain Charles Murchison Bernays, formerly of the Royal Army Medical Corps, died on 6th January 1920 in the Royal Victoria Hospital, Dover, aged 39. His death was attributed to haemorrhage as a result of his having been badly gassed in 1917 whilst on active service. Prior to the outbreak of war, he had been practising as a doctor in Shirley but at the time of his death he was house surgeon at the hospital where he died.
James Fern Webster was an engineer and prolific inventor who lived and worked in the High Street, Solihull Lodge in the 1870s/80s.
He developed a process for making the extraction of aluminium sufficiently cost effective for the metal to be used in the manufacture of everyday objects, patenting a process that enabled him to sell aluminium for £4 per pound instead of the £60 per pound that it had been previously. Prior to this, aluminium was considered a precious metal, and bars of aluminium were exhibited alongside the French Crown Jewels in the Paris Exhibition of 1855.
Continue reading “James Fern Webster – the “wizard of Warwickshire””Private William Henry Cooper, 2nd Aircraft Depot, Royal Air Force died in France of influenza and bronchial pneumonia. He was born in Shirley on 1st November 1873 and, in 1881, was living in Bills Lane with parents William (a metal roller) and Louisa Amelia (née Harrison) ,who had married in Moseley in 1866. Harry, as he was known, was the third of the couple’s four children (two sons, two daughters).
Private John Joseph Moreton, aged 33, died at 4pm on 26th November 1918 at Uffculme Auxiliary Hospital, Moor Green, Birmingham. He was serving with the 2nd Battalion, Royal Welsh Fusiliers. The cause of death was listed as (1) acute congestion of lungs probably of streptococal or mixed infection and (2) heart failure.
Sergeant William Henry Wedge, 2nd/6th Battalion, Royal Warwickshire Regiment, was killed in action on 2nd November 1918. Born in Birmingham in 1898, he was the only son of parents, William Henry Wedge (a stamper in a cycle works) and Martha Higgins, who had married at St Martin’s Church, Birmingham on 31st January 1897.
Gunner Ernest Solomon Bradley, 59th Siege Battery, Royal Garrison Artillery, died of pneumonia at No. 22 Casualty Clearing Station on 30th October 1918, aged 39, He was born in Shirley in 1879 and was the fifth of the ten known children (two sons, eight daughters) of parents William (a wheelwright) and Mary (née Millett). One of the children – Christabel Cecilia – died in 1884 at less than one year old. Another daughter, Florence Margaret, appears to have died in childbirth in 1904, aged 31.
Two local men died on 24th October 1918 whilst on active service – Sapper John Bertram Harris, 3rd Special Company, Royal Engineers and Private James Powers, 2nd/7th Battalion, Royal Warwickshire Regiment.
Five men with a local connection died on 23rd October 1918:
28-year-old Corporal Harold James Harvie died in Italy on 17th October 1918 serving with the 48th Divisional Ammunition Column, Royal Field Artillery. He died in hospital as a result of pneumonia following influenza and is buried at Montecchio Precalcino Communal Cemetery Extension, Italy.
Three men with a local connection lost their lives on 12th October 1918 whilst on active service – Private George Thomas Oakes, Horse Transport and Supply, Army Service Corps; Private Percy Poole, 281st Company, Machine Gun Corps; and Corporal Frederick George Wicketts, 4th Battalion, Middlesex Regiment.
Solihull Life 