40-year-old Private James Stephen Wrench, of Bentley Heath died of fever in Mesopotamia (modern-day Iraq) on 6th July 1916. He was born in Leamington Spa in 1875, where his father, James, worked as a cabinet maker. James Stephen Wrench had moved to Knowle by March 1900 when he married Louisa Gibbs at the parish church. By 1911, the couple were living in Bentley Heath. Their only child, May Louisa Wrench, was born in 1900 and lived in the local area until her death in 1973.
4th July 1916
Two local men with a connection to Solihull were killed in action on 4th July 1916 – Second Lieutenant Albert Theodore Vardy, 2nd Battalion, Royal Warwickshire Regiment and Private William Ewart Parrott, 6th Battalion, Wiltshire Regiment.
3rd July 1916
Two men with a local connection are known to have died on 3rd Jul 1916 as a result of their war service:
- Lieutenant Colonel William Burnett DSO, attended Solihull School
- Second Lieutenant Siegfried Thomas Hinkley, attended Packwood Haugh School
2nd July 1916
Four local men are known to have died on 2nd July 1916, all serving with the Royal Warwickshire Regiment:
- Private John Franklin, of Olton
- Drummer Frank Nash, of Shirley
- Private William Richard Pittom, of Shirley
- Second Lieutenant Cyril George Williamson, former pupil of Solihull School
1st July 1916
At “zero hour” – 7.30am on Saturday 1st July 1916 – officers in the trenches blew whistles and British troops scrambled up ladders along a 14-mile stretch of the Western Front. As instructed, they advanced at a slow, steady pace across No Man’s Land. They were met with a hail of German machine-gun and rifle fire. Accurate German shell barrages of the Allied assembly trenches also cut off their lines of support.
1st July 1916 – Solihull and Shirley
Seven men with a connection to Solihull or Shirley are known to have died on 1st July 1916:
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- Private James Burton, Middlesex Regiment
- Private Harold Clifton, Royal Warwickshire Regiment
- Private Frederick Percy Cooper, Royal Warwickshire Regiment
- Second Lieutentant William Henry Furse, Northumberland Fusiliers
- Private John Palmer Lyndon, Royal Warwickshire Regiment
- Private Richard James Smith, Royal Warwickshire Regiment
- Private James Webster, Royal Warwickshire Regiment
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1st July 1916 – Knowle etc
Ten local men with a connection to the area around Balsall Common, Knowle and, Dorridge died on the first day of the Battle of the Somme, 1st July 1916:
- Second Lieutenant John Balkwill, Royal Warwickshire Regiment
- Second Lieutenant Geoffrey Jermyn Brand, General List (attached 101st Trench Mortar Battery)
- Private Thomas Cooper, Royal Warwickshire Regiment
- Captain Cyril Thomas Morris Davies, Royal Warwickshire Regiment
- Private Walter Jennings, Royal Warwickshire Regiment
- Lieutenant Colonel Maurice Nicholl Kennard MC, West Yorkshire Regiment (Prince of Wales’s Own)
- Captain Stratford Walter Ludlow, Royal Warwickshire Regiment
- Captain Cyril Thomas Morris Davies, Royal Warwickshire Regiment
- Private Alfred Mutlow, North Staffordshire Regiment
- Private George Arthur Smitten, Royal Warwickshire Regiment
- Captain Willingham Franklin Gell Wiseman, Lincolnshire Regiment
Three of the men – John Balkwill, Thomas Cooper, and Stratford Ludlow, are commemorated in a stained glass window in the Soldiers’ Chapel at Knowle Parish Church, which was given in memory of Stratford Ludlow by his father, Brigadier-General Ludlow. It was dedicated by the Bishop of Birmingham on 5th June 1921.
1st July 1916 – Castle Bromwich and Marston Green
Two men from Castle Bromwich and one from Marston Green died on the first day of the First Battle of the Somme
- Private John Thomas Churchill, Royal Warwickshire Regiment
- Lieutenant Robert Quilter Gilson, Suffolk Regiment
- Private Harry Rudd, Royal Warwickshire Regiment
Continue reading “1st July 1916 – Castle Bromwich and Marston Green”
30th June 1916
Private Edmund Yapp, 6th Battalion, Oxford and Bucks Light Infantry, was killed in action on 30th June 1916 and is buried in Vlamertinghe Military Cemetery, Belgium. Born in the Bickenhill area, Soldiers Died in the Great War records was living in Shirley at the time he enlisted in the Army.
28th June 1916
Lance Corporal Clive Charteris Latch died of wounds, aged 25, on 28th June 1916 whilst serving with the 9th Battalion, Royal Inniskilling Fusiliers. He was admitted to hospital on 25th June 1916, suffering from a gunshot wound to the “upper extremities” and a compound fracture of the wound. He was transferred to the sick convoy the following day and died in hospital in Rouen two days later.
Solihull Life 