Herbert Rowland Sims was born in Warminster, Wiltshire, on 27th May 1895. One of nine children, he was the youngest son to Edward and Mary Sims. Edward was a railway signalman, and the family lived on Imber Road, to the north east of the town centre.

When Herbert finished his schooling, he found employment as a tailor’s apprentice. When war broke out, however, he was keen to play his part. His service records no longer exist, but a later newspaper report fills in some of the details.

The death took place on Wednesday in last week at the Tewkesbury Red Cross hospital of Lance-Cpl. Herbert Rowland Sims… [He] went to India on the outbreak of war with the Wilts Regiment, and subsequently volunteered for service in Mesopotamia, being transferred to the Dorsets. He contracted typhoid, and after being in hospital in Egypt he was invalided home. He was about to receive his discharge, but was again laid low by an attack of pneumonia which, after the illness contracted in Mesopotamia, proved fatal.

A memorial service was held in Tewkesbury Abbey on Saturday, the body being escorted by wounded comrades from the hospital. From the Abbey the coffin was taken to the railway station to be sent to Warminster, and on Monday the internment took place in the Minster churchyard with military honours.

[Wiltshire Times and Trowbridge Advertiser: Saturday 26th October 1918]

Herbert Rowland Sims was just 23 years of age when he died on 16th October 1918. He was laid to rest in St Denys’ Churchyard in his home town of Warminster.

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