Corporal Ernest Bateman, 2nd Battalion, South Staffordshire Regiment, was killed in action on 10th March 1915 according to Commonwealth War Graves records. Soldiers Died in the Great War lists the date of death as 26th June 1915. Continue reading “10th March 1915”
15th February 1915
25-year-old Lance Corporal Abraham Rose died on 15th February 1915 whilst serving with the 2nd Battalion, Duke of Cornwall’s Light Infantry. He was born in Langley Green, Oldbury in 1889, to parents John (born in Derby, a labourer at a brewery) and his second wife, Emma (née Salt). His first wife, also called Emma (née Jackson) died in Burton-on-Trent in 1875, seven years after her marriage to John at Marston on Dove in 1868. With three young children, John remarried soon after his wife’s death in 1875, and had moved with his family to Oldbury by 1881.
By 1901, Abraham was aged 12, recorded on the census as “adopted” and living in Oldbury with a John and Phoebe Rose. John was a 24-year-old bricklayer, born in Burton-on-Trent, and appears actually to have been Abraham’s brother. By 1911, John and Phoebe were living in Church Hill, Solihull but Abraham is not with them, and doesn’t appear to have been recorded on census returns elsewhere. It’s possible that he was a regular soldier and was away serving with the Army.
1st January 1915
The first of the 95 casualties from the Solihull area to die in 1915 was Royal Naval Chaplain, Rev. George Brooke Robinson, who died on New Year’s Day 1915 whilst serving on H.M.S. Formidable. This was the first British battleship to be sunk in the First World War. Rev. Robinson was the most senior Royal Navy chaplain to die in the war, and the fourth of 19 navy chaplains to be die on active service 1914-1919.
Continue reading “1st January 1915”22nd December 1914
Private John Charles Smith was killed in action at Givenchy on 22nd December 1914, aged 21. He died just over four months after enlisting in the Coldstream Guards.
According to the information in De Ruvigny’s Roll of Honour, he was the third son of Joseph and Ann Smith of Park Lane Corner, Berkswell. He was born on 12th April 1893 at Temple Balsall and was educated at Burton Green, near Kenilworth, and Temple Balsall. He enlisted on 18th August 1914 and was posted to France in December, shortly before he was killed.
He is commemorated at Berkswell and he is one of more than 13,400 soldiers with no known grave who is commemorated on the Le Touret Memorial, Pas de Calais, France.
21st December 1914
Private George Henry Carter, aged 27, died of wounds on 21st December 1914 and is buried in Belgium at the London Rifle Brigade Cemetery.
7th December 1914
Private Arthur Stenson died of wounds at the 19th Field Ambulance, serving with the 2nd Battalion Royal Welsh Fusiliers. The Commonwealth War Graves website gives his date of death as 9th December, although Soldiers Died in the Great War and Register of Soldiers’ Effects both record him as dying on 7th December.
Born in Birmingham in 1887, Arthur was living in Marston Green Cottage Homes by the 1891 census when he was three years old. He was still there ten years later, aged 14, and working as a bricklayer’s labourer’s boy. Cottage Homes were established in the 19th century to house children who would otherwise have gone into the workhouse. The intention was to keep children away from the adult inmates who could be bad influences. Many Cottage Homes educated the children, sometimes even better than they would have been outside the Homes, and taught them a trade so that they would be able to earn a living once they left.
26th November 1914
Ordinary Seaman Gilbert Harold Halstead was one of the 745 men and 51 officers who lost their lives when the battleship HMS Bulwark exploded at 7:50am on 26th November 1914 while anchored near Sheerness. Although sabotage or enemy action was initially suspected, a naval court of enquiry found that the explosion was caused either by a fault in one of the shells stored in a corridor or by the overheating of cordite that had been placed adjacent to a boiler room bulkhead. A list of the casualties was published in the Birmingham Daily Mail on 3rd December 1914.
Gilbert Halstead was born in Solihull on 10th February 1896, the only son amongst the five children of Harold William Halstead and his wife Evangeline (née Thompson). At the time of the 1911 census, the family was living at 14 Richmond Road, Olton, and 15-year-old Gilbert was working as a gun fittings hardener at a small arms factory, whilst his father was listed as Managing Director of a motor company. Ten years earlier, in 1901, when Gilbert was five, the family was living at Warwick Road, Olton and Gilbert’s father was listed as a carriage maker. Previous censuses show Harold as a wheelwright and apprentice carpenter.
Help us identify Borough casualties
So far, we have over 800 names on our list of those from places now in the Solihull Borough, or from the Solihull Rural District, who died as a result of their war service. However, we are struggling to identify in official records some of the people named on local memorials. This can be because there are too many people of the same name, or because we don’t have full names or service details, or because we have found possible individuals but can’t be sure of any local connection.
If you can help with information on any of the following, especially exact dates of death, please let us know:
Their names liveth for evermore
So far, we have the names of 730 people from places now in the Solihull Borough, or in the then Solihull Rural District, who lost their lives as a result of their war service.
We continue to research the names on the 35 memorials we’re aware of, plus those whose names we’ve found who don’t appear to be commemorated locally.
Over the next four years and beyond, we’ll carry on posting details here of those who died, remembering everyone individually by name on the centenary of their deaths, and sharing what we know about their lives. We don’t just want to list their names, but to tell something of their stories and, hopefully, to find out more from family members and from other researchers.
If you have any further information about anyone from the Solihull area who died as a result of their war service, please let us know.
Tracey
Heritage & Local Studies Librarian
tel.: 0121 704 6934
email: heritage@solihull.gov.uk
7th November 1914
30-year-old Private George Bullivant died on 7th November 1914 serving with the 1st Battalion, Royal Welch Fusiliers. He was born in Earlswood in 1885 and was still living there, aged 6, in 1891 with his parents, George (a bricklayer’s labourer) and Rose (also listed in other records as Rosanna(h)). George (junior) was the second youngest of the couple’s nine children (they seem to have had seven boys and two girls). The eldest child, John, was recorded with the family on the 1891 census, aged 25, but must have been home on leave as his occupation was recorded as a seaman in the Royal Navy.
George (senior) and Rosannah had both died by the time of the 1901 census – George in 1897 and Rose in 1900. Their youngest child, Albert (also recorded as Bertie), would have been just 13 when he was orphaned.
By 1901, George (junior) was aged 16 and still living in Earlswood, working as a groom and living in the household of farmer, John W. Lea. It’s not known when he enlisted in the Army, as his service record appears not to have survived. He also does not appear to be in the Earlswood area on the 1911 census, so it is possible that he was in the military at this point.
Solihull Life 